The population of the whole world is around 8 billion now and it is expected to climb to 10 billion by 2050. The land cover will remain the same as it is now, which poses a great challenge in terms of feeding the burgeoning population. We just do not have the land on which to grow enough food crops or raise enough livestock to feed so many mouths.
Protein will be particularly hard to come by since traditional animals like cattle, goats, sheep or pigs are not land efficient. Some companies are now offering products like look and taste like meat yet they are made from vegetable material. American companies, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Incorporated, for example, offer plant based burgers that come very close to real beef burgers. Genetic engineering is behind the processing of such foods.
We will need to look beyond genetic engineering to find appropriate alternatives to beef, pork, lamb or goat meat. Some experts are advocating resource rich foods which are traditionally shunned, especially in the West.
During my first year of study in the UK, I lived in a rented room in a home. One day my hosts asked me if I was okay with prawns. I was very frank with them and told them that I had not eaten them before. They nevertheless prepared some for me. Eating them reminded me of protein rich delicacies, such as ngumbi (flying termites) back home. People in the West will willingly eat prawns but will shun any type of insect as food. Some of them think that people are forced to eat insects by poverty.
The truth is that those who want to live beyond 2050 should be prepared to eat what the West considers bugs. Crickets will become a much sought after source of protein. Experts say whereas it takes 200 square metres to grow one kilogram of beef, the amount space required to grow one kilogram of crickets is just 15 square metres. This is because, among other things, you can engage in vertical farming with crickets, which is impossible with cattle. Therefore, crickets, or insects in general , are a lot more land efficient than traditional livestock. The one kilogram of beef would require 22,000 litres of water, far more than the 100 litres required for an equivalent mass of crickets.
We have local varieties of crickets here. Nkhululu are one such variety. Those of us who have been raised by parents who practiced some form of subsistence farming are no strangers to hoeing. I remember participating in hoeing when I was a school boy and often digging up a bald-headed insect we used to call chiboli, another local cricket. We used to gather them and take them home, to spice up our meals.
Apart from protein, insects are also rich in a whole range of micro-nutrients since they are consumed together with the exoskeleton. This makes them a better food resource than the traditional meats.
Our local crickets are seasonal insects. In fact most of our insects are. A very nutritious and tasty insect called bwannoni makes a very brief appearance during the cold season. When bwannoni hits the market, it usually will not last three to four weeks. If you miss it during that window, you will have to wait for another year before you get the next chance to taste it.
We need to find ways of prolonging the seasons of these insects. Perhaps our entomologists can give the proper advice in terms of what needs to be done to have crickets or flying termites beyond the rainy season or to get bwannoni even in the hot months of September and October. Raising and harvesting these delicacies should move into the realm of mainstream agriculture.We may scorn at consumers of some of these insects today but not too long from now the same insects will be our lifeblood.
Almost anything is edible in Africa. My late father was a pastor and during his pastoral duties he once went to a distant district, where he was fed bee larvae as ndiwo (relish). The larvae of a number of insects are edible. In Dowa the larvae of a certain type of butterfly are a delicacy known as mphalabungu. Some spiky larvae that consume the leaves of certain trees (such as mbwabwa) are also eaten with gusto.
We should banish all shame and search within our local catalogues of foods to find the looked down upon food items that will take us into the future and may prove to be very reliable sources of nutrition when our ever choked land can no longer support traditional livestock.