If Canadians wanted to eat crickets, we wouldn’t be forced to subsidize the cricket farm | Western Standard - Karen Selick:
July 3, 2022 - "I know a Canadian man who lives in Thailand. He teaches English as his primary occupation, but he and his wife also have a 'hobby farm' raising crickets.... When the insects are ready for harvesting, his wife — a Thai native — fries them up with popular Thai seasonings. The crickets are then sold as snacks.... For Thais, eating insects isn’t novel. Take a look at some of the other mouth-watering delicacies they eat: bamboo worms, silkworms, grasshoppers and giant water bugs....
"Thais aren’t the only people in the world who eat insects.... Recently, however, it has been announced that Canada, of all places - where I’ve lived all my life and have never known anyone to eat crickets - will become home to the world's largest cricket farm, newly built in London, Ontario by Aspire Food Group. The company’s CEO, Mohammed Ashour, predicts that North Americans will soon join two billion other people on the planet who, he claims, already eat insects.
"Note, though, that the world’s insect-eaters are almost all in third-world countries.... The Thai restaurants I’ve been to in North America offer beef, pork, shrimp and chicken on the menu, but I’ve never seen one offer worms, grasshoppers or crickets. People eat bugs primarily when they can’t afford more appetizing forms of protein. I checked with a friend in the nearby but much wealthier country of Singapore. He ... told me that, no, he has never seen anyone selling crickets. Singapore’s per capita GDP is seven times that of Thailand. Even Malaysians, who live right next door to Thailand but have a GDP per capita that’s 54% higher, don’t eat crickets, although there are apparently insect agriculture start-ups gearing up right now, just as in Canada. I wonder why.
"Aspire’s enormous spanking-new plant has been subsidized by a million-dollar award (the Hult Prize) received from the United Nations. As well, the company appears to have received $16.8 million from Canadian taxpayers through something called NGen (Next Generation Manufacturing Canada). It looks as though that’s just the first instalment, however; the project total for the 'insect protein supply chain in Canada' is shown on NGen’s website as $73 million.
"Aspire’s website acknowledges that it also received a third government grant, namely $10 million from SDTC (Sustainable Development Technology Canada) in June 2020. SDTC describes itself as 'a foundation created by the Government of Canada in 2001 to invest in clean technologies that address climate change, air quality, clean water and clean soil'....
"A search for 'crickets' in this database of Canadian Government Grants and Contributions revealed 24 separate grants totaling $13.8 million for food-related purposes, including another $8.5 million for Aspire Food Group under something called the AgriInnovate Program. As a taxpayer, I object strenuously to this use of my money for the manipulation of people’s eating habits. If people wanted to eat crickets, they’d buy them without any need for subsidies. If they don’t want to, they shouldn’t be continually pushed into doing so, with their own tax dollars doing the pushing.
"As far as the environment is concerned, there are other, non-coercive ways of making agriculture more productive while improving the environment. Farmer Joel Salatin of the famous Polyface Farm has lectured and written about this for decades. His method of regenerative agriculture restores land fertility while producing five times as much per acre as the neighbouring farms in his county. Regenerative Salatin-style farms are popping up all over the place in Canada. I’ve been buying all my meat, eggs, honey and flour from such farms for at least five years. These farmers work hard, improve their land, feed their customers, but if they make a profit at it — whoosh! It’s syphoned off to subsidize their cricket-rearing competitors. Pardon the pun, but it’s just not cricket."
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