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If we start eating insects, we will start farming them. But most of the insects we’re talking about as food sources are not primary pollinators. And that’s th

If we start eating insects, we will start farming them. But most of the insects we’re talking about as food sources are not primary pollinators. And that’s the important distinction that your question raises. Increasing the total biomass of insects won’t help with the pollination problem if we’re only boosting non-pollinator species. It will not help the situation with insecticides and plants.

hinkley 5y ago
We'll have the same problem that salmon farms and honeybee wranglers have now: so many parasites that they transfer to the wild populations. I mean, I still think we should farm insects, but as a more natural substitute for corn for our omnivore meat sources.
- filoeleven 5y ago
  Yeah, I haven’t looked into that but there’s no reason to expect otherwise. Speaking broadly, farming optimizes for output and disregards the ecosystems that the farms are a part of. For each farmer, this is okay; it works for them for now. Taken as a whole, it is not okay and contributes to bigger problems later (sometimes for earlier values of later). A greater understanding of farming trade-offs when it comes to ecosystems would likely obviate the need for farming insects in the first place. High up on the list is eliminating factory farms, and IMO all livestock farms and massive monoculture plant farms will have to be deeply scrutinized.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    A bunch of organic and permaculture people are discovering that you can feed food waste to chickens. They get a little veg, and then as the rest breaks down the food slowly turns into bugs and worms. It's morally similar to pre-consumer paper recycling - you're sourcing materials from food services. As long and you can keep the carbon footprint of transportation down, it's something you can use to offset feed corn, which has a large footprint. One place corn wins out is the low moisture content. You're not trucking water back and forth. But the corn doesn't win out on nutrition or quality of life for the animals, nor from a host of environmental concerns.

hinkley 5y ago

We'll have the same problem that salmon farms and honeybee wranglers have now: so many parasites that they transfer to the wild populations. I mean, I still think we should farm insects, but as a more natural substitute for corn for our omnivore meat sources.

filoeleven 5y ago
Yeah, I haven’t looked into that but there’s no reason to expect otherwise. Speaking broadly, farming optimizes for output and disregards the ecosystems that the farms are a part of. For each farmer, this is okay; it works for them for now. Taken as a whole, it is not okay and contributes to bigger problems later (sometimes for earlier values of later). A greater understanding of farming trade-offs when it comes to ecosystems would likely obviate the need for farming insects in the first place. High up on the list is eliminating factory farms, and IMO all livestock farms and massive monoculture plant farms will have to be deeply scrutinized.
- hinkley 5y ago
  A bunch of organic and permaculture people are discovering that you can feed food waste to chickens. They get a little veg, and then as the rest breaks down the food slowly turns into bugs and worms. It's morally similar to pre-consumer paper recycling - you're sourcing materials from food services. As long and you can keep the carbon footprint of transportation down, it's something you can use to offset feed corn, which has a large footprint. One place corn wins out is the low moisture content. You're not trucking water back and forth. But the corn doesn't win out on nutrition or quality of life for the animals, nor from a host of environmental concerns.