Lois’s answer to “How does it feel to be a visionary? https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/11/12/bi…” > Likes and Comments

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message 1: by Karenhunt (new)

Karenhunt Large company in France raising mealworms, crickets, and fly larvae in temperature-controlled plastic vats. They are fed from food waste from nearby farms and food processing plants; their dung becomes fertilizer and they get ground up for protein to feed animals.

They are not looking to feed people at this time, though I expect they'd be delighted to do so if folk wanted to eat bugs.


message 2: by Karenhunt (new)

Karenhunt Adding a bit more, it's the a fast-growing industry - the new hotness. This particular company set a record for biggest one yet.


message 3: by Sandy (new)

Sandy Bio-Architecture is making a lot of strides also. There have been a lot of recent articles on using parts of mushrooms, mycelium specifically, as building material. My spouse works in construction and recently finished a large facility that uses the mycelium to create many things, particularly pseudo leather products. There is a great episode of "Abstract: The Art of Design" (Netflix) on Neri Oxman who works at MIT in Bio-Architecture. I highly recommend it. A lot of very inspiring science and design is being developed and that is a great place to start for anyone interested in learning more.


message 4: by Patty (new)

Patty Treehunger dot com has a nice article about this that anyone can access.


message 5: by Patty (new)

Patty I just did a quick search on google using "the biggest bug farm" and chose the link under the TreeHugger website


message 6: by Alex (new)

Alex Shrugged On PBS I watched a science program that claimed that the reason the ozone hole was changing size was because of emissions of termites. Shortly after that, it was blamed on CFCs, so we had to change the stuff we put in hairspray and air conditioners.


message 7: by K (new)

K (sorry, I'm terrible at boiling things down. here's a couple more snippets)
bugs feed on food waste, often piped in from nearby farms or food processing plants. They’re tended to day and night by human handlers and AI-powered robots that keep the factories churning out protein 24/7.
Insect start-ups have raised over $1 billion in venture capital since 2020, and they’re now vying for dominance in the small but growing market for bug protein.
Insect start-ups hope large facilities will help them get their foot in the door with big buyers in the market for fish and livestock feed, pet food and fertilizer. “If you are just [producing] a few tons or tens of tons you don’t exist,” said Antoine Hubert, co-founder of Ynsect, a French start-up that specializes in mealworms. “This is why we have to design something pretty massive, because you need thousands of tons if not tens of thousands of tons to exist for a single buyer.”


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