Edible insects are increasingly being farmed commercially in Northeast Thailand,expanding an industry that has sprung up since 1999. Entomologists and agricultural extension agents at Khon Kaen University have developed low-cost, cricket-rearing techniques and offered training to local residents. Currently, 4 500 families in Khon KaenProvince raise crickets, as do nearly 15 000 others elsewhere throughout Thailand. A single family can manage cricket rearing as a sideline activity without outside help, needing only a few hundred square feet of land. The 400 families in just two local villages produce some 10 metric tons of crickets in summer, the peak yield period. As the weather cools, yields may eventually fall by 80 percent or more. Still, that translates to extra, yearround income of US$130 to US$ 1 600 a month per family – quite a windfall for residents of one of Thailand's poorer regions.Most of the farmed crickets go to big city markets, like outdoor stalls in Bangkok. However, some are exported to neighboring cricket-consuming nations, such as Laos and Cambodia. Thai families also farm ants, another popular edible insect. Khon Kaen University experts have also developed new rearing techniques for farming grasshoppers and the giant water bug (a Thai favorite). A recent survey of Thai insect consumers found that 75 percent eat bugs simply because they're tasty – especially as a snack with beer.
Excerpted from an article published in the ScienceNews (Vol.173 No.18).