The country is known for its love of meat. Could the growing insect industry help to reduce agricultural carbon emissions?
The French firm Ÿnsect in Dole grows mealworm larvae into beetles for use in oil, protein sources and fertilizer.Walking into Ÿnsect’s flagship manufacturing site in Dole, eastern France, the first thing that visitors are met with is a hot, earthy, composting smell. With it comes the realization that this is not a typical factory. At 17 metres high, this is the world’s largest vertical insect farm — home to at least 3 trillion mealworm beetles .
So why farm insects at all? “The world is facing a huge food sustainability crisis,” explains Hubert, an environmental engineer. “Insect protein is one very realistic and obvious solution to mitigating some of those challenges,” he says.With the global population expected to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, United Nations forecasters have warned that food production will also need to increase by as much as 70%.
For now, it seems the desire to reduce carbon footprints has been overtaken by a love of meat. So, could feeding insects to the animals that produce the meat be a solution? Ÿnsect thinks so and says its system is easily scalable. And in March, the company announced the acquisition of commercial mealworm farm Jord Producers in Lindsay, Nebraska — manufacturing the mealworms into Ÿnsect products is due to start at the end this year. Hubert aims to open 15 more plants by the end of the decade. By that time, he anticipates, the company will focus equally on protein for human consumption and for animal feed.
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