Why Rich People Eating Insects Won’t Save the World

Eating insects has seen some attention in recent years. Particularly from groups in wealthier countries. With the consumption of insects framed as a solution to all ills, what can insects really do to help structural inequality, the upcoming food crisis and power relationships between the rich and poor?

This article is based on work by ANDREW MÜLLER et al of Wageningen Academic Press, 100% of the credit for ideas herein should go to this group.

We are presented with the story that eating insects have the potential to replace conventional meat, their inherent efficiency in land, water and feed consumption making them a clear choice for a solution to a “broken” food system.

“Insects are healthy, nutritious alternatives to mainstream staples such as chicken, pork, beef and even fish.” Washington Post

The solution narrative is perfectly captured by what was the title of the worlds first international conference for insects as food and feed entitled “Insects to Feed the World”

This framing has a number of shortcomings, “insects” is not a single thing and there’s no guarantee the western consumer will take up the food. Most lacking from the perspective of Muller is an appreciation of the political power relationships within the insect food system.

Muller asks who would benefit from a scaled up insect food system. Disecting the cost of insects for food, products available online in the UK had an average price of $25/USD, implying the vast majority of the world’s population has no access to the food.

Further, insects as food, like any product can and will quickly become comoditised if sold widely and without controls. With strong motivations to sell insects not for social reform but for profit. The technofix, without careful attention to the power backdrop upon which it acts is nothing more than another tool for the rich to get richer.

Muller looks into this relationship, discussing the jobs held by those in developing countries in the insect farm. Typically subject to structural inequalities these workers are typically men, from relatively well off families. Muller also looks at a group of labourers pulling wings off insects in a market, finding many are working illegally, similar to many workers in southeast Asia. These anecdotal findings serve to highlight the structural inequalities at play; we cannot help these people with merely a system to grow insects, there needs to be a strong, social enterprise aspect to any company hoping to advantage the poor, this is specific to the company not inherent to the technology.

At the end of the day, insects as food is like any new food technology, the power resides with the wealthy and the wealthy usually want to remain that way. Unless insects as food is directly used to enhance food security and elevate those in the lowest rungs of society who interact with it, we will see the very same structural inequalities reinforced by our “one world” approach to food.