Food for the future: sustainability assessment of cricket products for policy decisions to move toward sustainable agriculture in Thailand

Abstract

Insects will be an important alternative food for protein in the future. Crickets, with a high protein level (54-70%) and all the essential amino acids, have emerged as a high potential protein source. Thailand is taking a leading position in Southeast Asia when it comes to producing alternative proteins based on crickets, with an annual production capacity of 3,700 tonnes/year with 1,200 registered farmers. To provide supporting information for sustainable agriculture policy decisions toward food security, carbon footprinting was applied as the analytical tool to assess the environmental performance of house cricket farming and processing into frozen fresh crickets and cricket powder. The inventory data associated with the life cycle of cricket products were collected from 20 farms in the north and 16 farms in the northeast covering small-, medium-, and large-sized farms. In the processing stage, the inventory data were gathered from the internal recording systems of the production processing activities from a local cricket manufacturer. Based on the edible protein content as the functional unit, the carbon footprint values of frozen crickets and cricket powder were 4.6 and 11.3 kgCO2e/kg of edible protein, respectively. By calculating the revenue of cricket-based products per carbon footprint, we showed that the cricket powder had higher eco-efficiency values (almost 4 times) than fresh crickets. Furthermore, the net income from cricket farming and processing was 567-69,670 USD/year and the labour productivity was 16-223 USD/worker-day. This information should be very useful for government to support national policy decision-making on promoting and increasing the number of cricket farms, with the aim of enhancing market opportunities, especially in international markets. Cricket farming is expected to offer a livelihood strategy based of sustainable agriculture in Thailand, while making a strong potential contribution toward food security.