May Contain Traces of Locusts

Farming in Australia goes in cycles. There is the common "its a horrible drought and farmers will need government assistance just to survive" cycle. Then there is the rarer but still frequent "its a terrible flood and farmers will need government assistance just to survive" cycle and finally there is the cycle we're going into now; the "we're expecting a bumper crop but the locusts are going to eat it all and farmers are going to need government assistance just to survive" cycle.

A combination of drought followed by flood has actually produced good growing conditions and farmers are eagerly awaiting the wheat crop which should be superb this year. Also eagerly awaiting the wheat crop are the locusts who are apparently massing in great numbers and preparing to sweep down on our agricultural produce like a plague of, well, locusts. Sorry, similies failed me for a moment. Perhaps not coincidentally there was an article in the paper today which pointed out that in many parts of the world, people eat insects. Not in any restaurant I've been to they don't.

Apparently the cricket (a near relation of the locust) is high in protein, low in fat, with a delicious nutty flavour and you can floss with an antenna afterwards. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Our farmers are sitting on top of a chirruping gold mine. Rather than bewail the fact that locusts have eaten all their crop they could simply rebadge themselves as locust farmers and be wildly successful.

Think how easy it would be; farmers don't actually have to do anything different to what they're doing now. They plant the bait, sorry I mean crops, and up the locusts come. If there is anything of the crop left after the locust harvest they can sell that as an extra. There would be bragging rights as well. Farmer A would boast about having twenty thousand head of cattle, farmer B would boast about his fifty thousand head but both would be knocked into silence when the locust farmer proudly announces that he had ninety billion head of livestock before he stopped counting.

Australia could be on the verge of an insect lead economic recovery. Besides, its about time insects started to pull their weight. For too long plants, mammals, fish and the occasional reptile have shouldered the burden of feeding humanity pretty much on their own. It is time that insects stepped up to be counted, and then killed, packaged and exported to those countries that are prepared to eat insects. Some people might not think this is a great idea but I'll bet every cow and sheep in the country will stand up and cheer.

There are other benefits, our balance of trade will be helped for a start. It used to be said that Australia rode on the sheep's back and nowadays our wealth is largely based on digging up the country and shipping it to China. Selling crunchy bug snacks to the world will be a much needed third string to our bow.

Of course once the locust industry is established we can specialise. We can export live locusts to Saudi Arabia to be killed in an appropriately Muslim fashion. We can breed special wagyu locusts for the Japanese (and general wanker) market and for those pathetic clowns who insist on being vegetarian we can have soy locusts with just as much crunch but fewer insect carapaces. There would be sugar dusted locusts and caramelised locusts for the kiddies and any left over could be ground down into a nutritious paste and sold to retirement homes. We could have luxury locusts (fed only the choicest grain and raised by hand) that could go to high end restaurants and the sort of food shops that will sell anything that can't creep out the door.

And this is only the beginning. Australia didn't get much in the way of magnificent predators or stately herbivores but we sure as hell have a lot of insects. We could supply the world and once we have the planet on an insect only diet we unveil our secret weapon; spiders. Think about it, eight drumsticks per carcass. Australia's wealth can't just be measured in its deep mines and beautiful beaches. Soon everything that crawls, slithers or flies into the insect zapper is going to be a tiny little gold mine. Those bug catchers we used to have as kids would make a comeback as children looked to make a little pocket money in the summer holidays. Gourmet insects could become quite a cottage industry, if the cottage was leaky and didn't have fly screen.

There will be difficulties of course, locusts are notoriously difficult to herd and killing them with pesticide might leave an unpleasant aftertaste but this is nothing we can't handle. We can expect the big agricompanies to get in on the act as well. I understand that some of them have been working on giant, genetically modified locusts for years now however instead of unleashing them on their opposition they can sell them at a profit. The only real problem with locusts is that their prevalence is largely determined by food supply. That is if the weather doesn't produce a good crop then there won't be that many locusts either. Thus we will have another farmers cycle, the "the locusts didn't hatch and farmers are going to need government assistance just to survive" cycle. But as those who work on the land know, the only guaranteed crop is the one that comes from the welfare office.