This week on The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks continues her series exploring the meat industry in collaboration with with Slow Food USA as they prepare for Slow Meat 2015, a symposium and fair taking place June 4-6 in Denver, Colorado. Robert Nathan Allen of Aspire USA joins Erin on the line from Austin, Texas and explains that the company seeks to create, process, and sell the highest quality, farm-raised edible insects worldwide. Touting that the United States is in the minority of countries around the world that are eating highly nutritious insects, Nathan gives a great run down of how they set up their farm plus the efficiencies of the cricket farm as compared to a typical livestock farm. Nathan takes Erin through Aspire USA’s method of capture for production, which is quick and humane as crickets de-animate within moments of being placed in a freezer and how Aspire USA is dedicated to raising healthy, tasty, and happy crickets. Discussing the differences between cricket powder and cricket flour, the input versus output of cricket farming, the safety concerns of edible insects, plus ways in which cricket and cricket products can populate the market. Tune in for an interesting conversation! This program was brought to you by Bonnie Plants.

“They’re [crickets] more feed efficient than other livestock options, they use a fraction of the water of other livestock options, and they product a fraction of the greenhouse gases.” [10:44]

“The beauty of edible insects is that we mitigate a lot of the potential harms that we’ve seen so far, so for instance… mad cow disease, avian flu, swine flu… there is no risk of that sort of transmission.” [31:30]

—Robert Nathan Allen on The Farm Report

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