There are about 100 cockroach farmers in China riding the
wave of rapid expansion as prices have soared from $2 to $20 a pound.
Wang Fuming, who has the largest cockroach farm in China,
said he got into the business three years ago because it’s more profitable than
raising pigs.
He now owns six farms with about 10 million cockroaches.
Buyers use them for medicine, cosmetics and high-protein
food.
The favored breed for this purpose is the Periplaneta americana,
or American cockroach, a reddish-brown insect that grows to about 1.6 inches
long and, when mature, can fly, as opposed to the smaller, darker, wingless
German cockroach, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Food-industry watchers predict that insects will become more popular
in diets as the world population increases from seven billion now to nine
billion in less than 40 years.
"We try to keep a low profile," said Liu Yusheng, head of
the Shandong Insect Industry Assn., the closest thing there is to a trade
organization in China.
"The government is tacitly allowing us to do what we do, but if
there is too much attention, or if cockroach farms are going into residential
areas, there could be trouble," he told the Los Angeles Times.
Liu worries about the rapid growth of an industry with too many
inexperienced players and too little oversight.
In 2007, a million Chinese lost $1.2 billion when a firm promoting ant
farming turned out to be a Ponzi scheme and went bankrupt.
That makes Pigeon King look like a piker.
"This is not like raising regular farm animals or vegetables
where the Agricultural Ministry knows who is supposed to regulate it. Nobody
knows who is in charge here," he said.
