Will You Eat the Bugs?

By: Chris Johnson

“No Farms, No Food.”

If you live in a farming community, you might have seen this bumper sticker on the back of a pickup truck at a stoplight or in a parking lot. They’re a great reminder to city-slickers who might get irate at being the last in a twenty car parade whose Grand Marshall is hauling a manure spreader.

The makers of this sticker explain the purpose for the catchy reminder like this: “America’s farms provide an unparalleled abundance of fresh, healthy, and local food, but they are rapidly disappearing…”

I doubt even the American Farmland Trust knows the extent to which that last bit is true as they ship out this clever little slogan, but the makers of a similarly named documentary do.

“No Farmers, No Food: Will You Eat the Bugs?” is a timely and important documentary coming from the bold minds at The Epoch Times.

“Will you eat the bugs?” sounds like an outlandish question we can’t imagine anyone answering ‘yes’ to. Kids who grew up in the ‘90s and their parents might recall Timon and Pumba trying to convince Simba to eat slugs in the Lion King. If “now fortified with meal worm” were splashed across a cereal box, they might have a hard time closing the sale.

But what if it was a far more affordable option and it was made to taste, more-or-less, steak-y? An UnHerd.com article by Mary Harrington explains the issue: “The problem… is real. Protein is a key building-block for human health; no wonder that global meat consumption has more than quadrupled since 1961, and is growing most swiftly in low and middle-income countries. Where it’s possible for meat to go from a luxury to a staple, people want it to.” So far, so good. Here’s the kicker: “But the boom in meat production has been achieved largely by industrialising animal farming — a practice with grave environmental consequences.” The problem with animal protein is that animals fart, which of course causes “climate change.” That and lots of heavy equipment has to burn lots of diesel fuel to produce and transport feed for all of those animals.

Bugs don’t fart.

And they’ll eat anything. They’ll clean up the compost pile. Instead of grassfed beef, we can have trash-fed bugs.

Am I selling it?

Well, it is being sold. According to the Economist.com, “Insect products are now available in many countries. You can buy cricket snacks in Britain, mealworm burgers in Germany and supermarket-branded cricket powder in Canada.”

Just recently, the cheap chicken monolith Tyson Foods announced they were partnering with a Netherlands based bug protein company to build a plant in the US. Their CFO, John Tyson, said “In the long run, insect-protein inclusion in animal-feed diets can be a real thing that exists and can be one that is good for people, planet and animals.”

Tyson’s Dutch partner brings up an interesting connection – Dutch farmers’ own recent battles with these new forms of food production. If their past predicts American farmers’ future, they’re in for a difficult time.

Last year, I wrote this for the American Conservative: “The ‘Boers’ (Dutch farmers) aren’t just blocking traffic, they’re spraying manure on government offices and officials’ homes, lighting hay bales on fire in the highway median, and blocking shipments from processing plants.

“To varying degrees, they’ve been at this for weeks as their parliament has contemplated a measure which seeks to drastically cut emissions from farms, forcing sales of farmland that has been owned in some cases for hundreds of years by the same family. It would mean farms having to slaughter large percentages of healthy herds. Ultimately, for many small farms, it would mean the end of their livelihoods.

“This is admitted by the Dutch government. According to ABC News, ‘The ruling coalition wants to cut emissions of pollutants, predominantly nitrogen oxide and ammonia, by 50% nationwide by 2030.… ‘The honest message…is that not all farmers can continue their business,’ and those who do will likely have to farm differently, the government said in a statement this month as it unveiled emission reduction targets.’”

Ironically, the Dutch government hasn’t moved to shut down farms because they wanted to produce less food, they want to produce more food – in multilevel hydroponic facilities run by employees in white lab coats working for corporations rather than the families who’ve farmed their land for generations.

Such a move here, where animal products are some of our biggest agricultural exports, might force everyone onto artificial meat. Epoch Time’s documentary asks the right question: “Will you eat the bugs?”

We strongly encourage you to watch this Epoch Times special at NoFarmersNoFood.com. In the very first few minutes you will see that it is relevant to you, no matter if you live near a farm or far away from agricultural centers in a big metropolitan area. A subscription to EpochTV is required, or new users can get 4 weeks for $4 to watch the movie.

For those of you living within vicinity of American Decency headquarters in rural Fremont, Michigan, I encourage you to come to our free showings of this powerful documentary.

 

“No Farmers.  No Food.  Will You Eat the Bugs?”

Friday, November 3, 2023
1:00 PM or 6:30 PM

American Decency Association
203 E Main Street, Fremont, MI  49412

 

 

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