Sustainable food
Date: May 11, 2017
Source: Faculty of Science -
University of Copenhagen
Identifying areas of particular
high impact is an important step to improving the environmental sustainability
of production systems. Insects have been heralded as the foods of the future --
and now the first study to measure the environmental impacts and identify
hotspots associated with commercial insect production has been published.
Cricket farming can be a
sustainable way to produce animal source foods
The study demonstrated that
cricket farming can be a sustainable means of producing animal source foods.
The study compared cricket production in Thailand to broiler chicken
production. Fifteen different environmental impacts were investigated including
global warming potential, resource depletion and eutrophication.
In most cases, cricket production
had a lower impact than broiler chicken production. The major reason for the
lower impacts is the fact that the feed conversion into animal protein is more
efficient, as the production of the feed is a major hotspot in both systems.
"This research is very
timely, as there are many different stakeholders interested in farmed insects.
Many people have seen insects as a means of lowering the environmental burden
of animal production. Insects, in many cases, can be comparable to meat and
fish in terms of nutritional value. The fact that we have shown here that they
can be produced more environmentally sustainably than meat means that they
represent a massive potential for lowering the impact of the food
production" explains lead author, PhD student Afton Halloran of the
University of Copenhagen's Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports.
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