A business solving the global food crisis by selling protein-rich crickets while helping cassava farmers in Vietnam earn extra income.
Globally, we will need to feed 9.5 billion people by 2050, demanding protein production to be doubled by then.
Meanwhile, half a million Vietnamese cassava farmers make less than US$1,500 (€1,300) a year, well below the national average.
The answer to solving both of these problems lies in crickets. That’s certainly the view of Bicky, who established CricketOne, along with her co-founder Nam, selling protein extraction from crickets to help farmers and to solve the global food crisis.
Farmers are facilitated with intensive and vertical -breeding unit at no upfront cost. These units are refurbished from abandoned shipping containers equipped with biomass and climate control system monitored and controlled by IoT system. Each unit requires only 30mins per day per labor for caring and produces as much as 100sqm conventional farm does. And the farmers can use their leftover cassava includes leaves, stem and branches to feed the crickets with the feeding scheme transferred by CricketOne. These leftovers contain 20–22% of proteins and are rich in mineral fibres and copper.
In two and a half years, the business has helped 30 farmers make up to US$750 (€645) a month. And by stopping the burning of leftover cassava, carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced by 77 million tonnes a year.
CricketOne