Grub’s up

幼蟲來助力

Beetles and flies are becoming part of the agricultural food chain

甲蟲和蒼蠅正在成為農(nóng)業(yè)食物鏈的一部分

They are raised in farms and fed to fish

它們?cè)谵r(nóng)場里長大，被用來喂魚

Jul 4th 2019

SOME VISIONARIES hope that insects will play a big role in future human diets. Insects are nutritious, being packed with protein. Unlike hot-blooded mammals and birds, which use a lot of energy to keep themselves warm, they are efficient converters of food into body mass. And in some parts of the world they are, indeed, eaten already.

一些夢(mèng)想家希望昆蟲在未來人類的飲食中扮演重要角色。昆蟲富含蛋白質(zhì)，營養(yǎng)豐富。溫血的哺乳動(dòng)物和鳥類需要消耗大量的能量來保持體溫，而昆蟲與他們不同，它們是食物和體重的高效轉(zhuǎn)換器。在世界上的部分地區(qū)，昆蟲已經(jīng)作為食物被食用。

詞匯

Visionary/空想家；夢(mèng)想者；有眼力的人

Well, maybe. But it will take some serious marketing to persuade consumers, in the West at least, that fricasseed locusts or termiteburgers are the yummy must-haves of 21st-century cuisine. The visionaries might nevertheless prove correct that insects will contribute to human nutrition—just not in the way they imagine.

嗯,也許吧。但要想說服消費(fèi)者(至少在西方)，讓他們相信燜蝗蟲或白蟻漢堡是21世紀(jì)美食家們的必備美食，還需要進(jìn)行一些頗有用心的營銷策略。盡管如此，這些遠(yuǎn)見卓識(shí)者可能會(huì)證明昆蟲對(duì)人類營養(yǎng)的貢獻(xiàn)是正確的——只不過不是他們想象的那樣。

詞匯

Fricasseed/燜制的

locust/?蝗蟲；蚱蜢

termite/白蟻

What is actually happening is that a band of entrepreneurs are breeding insects as animal fodder—particularly fish food. Grown on cheap inputs, then crushed and formed into meal, they will thus provide all of the nutritional advantages the visionaries talk of, but at one remove from people’s dining tables instead of being served up directly for lunch.

事實(shí)上，一群企業(yè)家正在培育昆蟲作為動(dòng)物飼料——尤其是作為魚飼料。它們生長在廉價(jià)的原料上，然后被碾碎做成一頓飯，因此，它們將為魚兒提供所有夢(mèng)想家們所提及的營養(yǎng)優(yōu)點(diǎn)，但與人們的餐桌相隔一段距離——不是直接作為午餐供應(yīng)。

?

The two most promising species are flour beetles and black soldier flies, specifically the larval stages of these animals. Flour-beetle larvae, better known as mealworms (pictured above), have been used as fish food for a long time—they are excellent bait for anglers and are bred commercially on a small scale for this and other purposes, including as chicken food. Black-soldier-fly larvae are a more recent subject of interest. They are, in the jargon, saprophagous, meaning that they feed on decaying organic matter and will thus eat all sorts of stuff, including manure. This has led to interest in using them as composting agents, so that cultivating them, too, has already been happening on a small scale. What has changed are people’s ambitions. Instead of turning such insects out by the kilogram, the plan is to do it by the tonne, by industrialising the process.

最有盼頭的兩個(gè)物種是粉甲蟲和黑蠅，特別是這些動(dòng)物的幼蟲階段。面粉甲蟲幼蟲，更廣為人知的是粉蟲(見上圖)，很長一段時(shí)間以來一直被用作魚的食物——它們是垂釣者的絕佳誘餌，并被用于小規(guī)模的商業(yè)養(yǎng)殖，包括作為雞肉的食物。黑軍蠅幼蟲是最近才引起人們興趣的課題。用行話來說，它們是食腐的，意思是它們以腐爛的有機(jī)物為食，因此會(huì)吃各種各樣的東西，包括糞肥。這引起了人們對(duì)把它們用作堆肥劑的興趣，因此，小規(guī)模地培育它們也已經(jīng)開始了。但這個(gè)項(xiàng)目人們的雄心壯志已經(jīng)改進(jìn)。他們的計(jì)劃是通過工業(yè)化生產(chǎn)一噸昆蟲，而不是按公斤來生產(chǎn)這種昆蟲。

詞匯

Larvae/幼蟲，幼體

Jargon/行話，術(shù)語

saprophagous,/ 食腐的

Fly fishing

飛蠅垂釣

One of the most advanced mealworm-raising enterprises is run by Ynsect, a French firm. It uses an approach called vertical farming, which is also popular with those growing salad vegetables in cities, in the modern equivalents of market gardens. Vertical farming is an indoor operation in which the produce is held in trays that can be shuffled around robotically.

法國Ynsect公司是世界上最先進(jìn)的食肉動(dòng)物飼養(yǎng)企業(yè)之一。它采用了一種被稱為垂直農(nóng)業(yè)的方法，這種方法在現(xiàn)代市場菜園中也很受那些在城市種植沙拉蔬菜的人的歡迎。垂直農(nóng)業(yè)是一種室內(nèi)作業(yè)，將農(nóng)產(chǎn)品放在托盤中，托盤可以被機(jī)器人移動(dòng)。

詞匯

Shuffle/把……變換位置；調(diào)動(dòng)

?

Ynsect’s test facility, in Burgundy, is 20 metres tall and has 10,000 mealworm-laden trays. Nothing is wasted. The insects’ droppings are collected for use in fertilisers. When the larvae are about ten weeks old, those not destined to pupate, and thus provide the next generation of mealworms, are sorted, cleaned and steamed to death. They are then, as Antoine Hubert, Ynsect’s boss, puts it, treated like olives. They are crushed to extract their oil and the remaining pulp is dried and powdered. These products are sold as pet food. But the company’s eventual targets are fish farms raising salmon, trout and sea bass.

Ynsect在勃艮第的測(cè)試設(shè)施有20米高，有10000個(gè)盛滿面粉蟲的托盤。沒有什么是浪費(fèi)。昆蟲的糞便被收集起來用作肥料。當(dāng)幼蟲大約十周大時(shí)，那些注定不會(huì)蛹化，從而提供下一代粉蟲的幼蟲就會(huì)被分類、清洗和蒸死。就像Ynsect的老板Antoine Hubert所說的那樣，他們就像橄欖一樣被對(duì)待。它們被壓碎以榨取油脂，剩下的肉渣被干燥并磨成粉末。這些產(chǎn)品作為寵物食品出售。但該公司的最終目標(biāo)是養(yǎng)殖三文魚、鱒魚和鱸魚的漁場。

詞匯

?trout/鮭魚，鮭鱒魚

?sea bass/鱸類海魚

The test facility turns out 30 tonnes of protein meal a month. On the back of its success, Ynsect is planning to start construction, later this year, of a full-scale commercial operation, 30 metres tall. This farm, in Amiens, will produce 1,500 tonnes of meal a month. And Ynsect is not alone in its ambitions for mealworms. In Washington state, in America, the home of many fish farms, a firm called Beta Hatch is building a commercial mealworm farm inside an old juice factory. This, Virginia Emery, the firm’s boss, hopes, will match the output of Ynsect’s farm in Burgundy.

該試驗(yàn)場每月生產(chǎn)30噸蛋白質(zhì)粉。在取得成功的基礎(chǔ)上，Ynsect計(jì)劃在今年晚些時(shí)候開始建設(shè)一個(gè)30米高的全面商業(yè)運(yùn)營項(xiàng)目。這個(gè)位于亞眠的農(nóng)場每月將生產(chǎn)1500噸糧食。Ynsect并不是唯一一家對(duì)粉蟲有野心的公司。在美國華盛頓州，許多養(yǎng)魚場的所在地，一家名為Beta Hatch的公司正在一家舊果汁廠內(nèi)建造一個(gè)商業(yè)粉蟲養(yǎng)殖場。公司老板維吉尼亞?埃默里希望這一數(shù)字能與Ynsect在勃艮第的農(nóng)場產(chǎn)量相媲美。

?

The leading contender in the breeding of black soldier flies, meanwhile, is AgriProtein. Its factory on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, produces a similar tonnage to that of Ynsect’s Burgundian facility. Flies being more active than beetles, AgriProtein’s farm employs huge cages to hold them by the million. The fertilised females lay their eggs in trays fitted with cavities shaped like honeycomb and slathered in molasses. These trays are removed at regular intervals to ensure that the larvae within hatch simultaneously and are thus the same size—for large larvae often cannibalise small ones.

與此同時(shí)，培育黑兵蠅的主要競爭者是AgriProtein。該公司位于南非開普敦郊區(qū)的工廠，生產(chǎn)的噸位與Ynsect勃艮第工廠相仿。蒼蠅比甲蟲更活躍，AgriProtein的農(nóng)場使用巨大的籠子來容納上百萬只蒼蠅。受精后的雌性蒼蠅將卵產(chǎn)在裝有蜂窩狀空腔的托盤中，這些空腔被涂上厚厚的糖蜜。這些托盤定期被移走，以確保幼蟲同時(shí)孵化，因此大小相同——因?yàn)榇蟮挠紫x經(jīng)常會(huì)吃掉小的幼蟲。

詞匯

Contender/競爭者；爭奪者

Cannibalise/同類相食

?

Once removed from the breeding cages, the eggs are placed in hatching units and the young larvae then transferred for a short time to a nursery before being moved again, to an area where they can grow. After ten days here they are crushed and turned into oils and meal in a manner similar to that employed by Ynsect.

一旦從繁殖籠中取出，卵就被放置在孵化單元中，幼蟲被轉(zhuǎn)移到苗圃中一小段時(shí)間，然后再被轉(zhuǎn)移到一個(gè)可以生長的地方。在這里10天后，它們被壓碎，用一種類似于Ynsect使用的方法將它們轉(zhuǎn)換為油脂和飼料。

?

One notable difference between the mealworm and soldier-fly approaches to insect farming is the fodder that the larvae are themselves fed. The companies are tight-lipped about their specific formulas. Mealworms are vegetarians. Ynsect feeds its charges on a diet including wheat bran. AgriProtein’s fly larvae were originally pampered with blood from abattoirs mixed with bran, while the adults were fed milk powder, molasses and sugar. Now the firm has formulated proprietary diets for both larvae and adults.

將粉蟲和軍蠅轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)槔ハx規(guī)?；曫B(yǎng)的一個(gè)顯著區(qū)別在于飼養(yǎng)依賴于自己的飼料喂養(yǎng)。這些公司對(duì)它們的具體配方守口如瓶。粉虱是素食者。Ynsect的食物包括麥麩。AgriProtein公司的果蠅幼蟲最初是被屠宰場的血液和麩皮混合喂養(yǎng)的，而成年果蠅則被喂食奶粉、糖蜜和糖?，F(xiàn)在，該公司已經(jīng)為幼蟲和成蟲制定了專利食譜。

詞匯

approach to/通往…的方法

Fodder/飼料；素材

Molasses/ ?糖蜜，糖漿

Exactly what farmed insects eat depends as much on local regulations as on what the insects prefer. It was only in 2017 that the EU permitted the feeding of insect protein to farmed fish—and this on condition that the insects themselves tucked into foodstuffs approved as animal fodder. AgriProtein, which intends to expand its reach beyond South Africa, formulates its proprietary mixes to conform to the rules in destination markets.

確切地說，養(yǎng)殖昆蟲吃什么既取決于當(dāng)?shù)胤ㄒ?guī)，也取決于它們喜歡什么。直到2017年，歐盟才允許向養(yǎng)殖的魚類喂食昆蟲蛋白——前提是這些昆蟲本身所喂養(yǎng)的食材為被批準(zhǔn)作為動(dòng)物飼料的食品范圍內(nèi)。AgriProtein打算將業(yè)務(wù)擴(kuò)展到南非以外的地區(qū)，它制定了自己的專有配方，以符合目標(biāo)市場的規(guī)則。

詞匯

Tuck/ ?卷起；擠進(jìn)；大口吃

Regulatory fussiness, though understandable, does get in the way of another possible benefit of fly farming—waste disposal. Jason Drew, AgriProtein’s boss, reckons fly farms may one day prove ideal places to manage and recycle excrement, especially in poor countries. To this end, a subsidiary of the company has worked out how to extract birth-control and growth hormones from human and animal faeces respectively, to avoid these getting into the finished product. They hope, regulators permitting, to start adding treated faeces to fly-feed next year or the year after.

雖然可以理解監(jiān)管的繁瑣，但它確實(shí)妨礙了蒼蠅農(nóng)業(yè)的另一個(gè)可能的好處——廢物處理。AgriProtein的老板賈森?德魯(Jason Drew)估計(jì)，有朝一日，蒼蠅養(yǎng)殖場可能會(huì)成為管理和回收糞便的理想場所，尤其是在貧窮國家。為此，該公司的一家子公司已經(jīng)研究出如何分別從人類和動(dòng)物糞便中提取節(jié)育激素和生長激素，以避免它們進(jìn)入成品。他們希望，在監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)允許的情況下，從明年或后年開始在蒼蠅飼料中添加經(jīng)過處理的糞便。

詞匯

Fussiness/易激怒

Faeces/糞便

At your disposal

由你支配

Both beetle farmers and fly farmers also aspire to follow the paths of other husbanders of livestock by breeding better versions of their animals. Over the past four years, for example, researchers in Finland, Spain and Serbia have built up a genetic library of black-soldier-fly varieties. Gunilla St?hls of the University of Helsinki says this library shows how much variety the flies have to offer—an essential basis for a breeding-improvement programme.

無論是甲蟲養(yǎng)殖戶還是蒼蠅養(yǎng)殖戶，都希望通過培育出更好的品種來效仿其他牲畜養(yǎng)殖戶的做法。例如，在過去的四年里，芬蘭、西班牙和塞爾維亞的研究人員已經(jīng)建立了一個(gè)黑軍蠅的基因庫。赫爾辛基大學(xué)的Gunilla Stahls說，這個(gè)圖書館展示了果蠅必須提供多少種類——這是一個(gè)繁殖改良計(jì)劃的基本基礎(chǔ)。

?

Mr Drew thinks the scope for such improvement is enormous. As he observes by analogy, a few decades ago a laying hen would produce about three eggs a week, and even then only during the summer. Selective breeding means such a hen can now be counted on to turn out double that number, and to do so all year round.

Drew先生認(rèn)為這種改進(jìn)的空間是巨大的。正如他通過類比觀察到的，幾十年前，一只下蛋的母雞每周會(huì)產(chǎn)下大約3個(gè)雞蛋，即便是夏天也是如此。選擇性繁殖意味著這樣的母雞現(xiàn)在可以預(yù)期下出兩倍的數(shù)量的蛋，而且全年如此。

詞匯

Analogy/類比；類推

At the moment, the tonnages firms like Ynsect and AgriProtein aim to produce are still trivial compared with the multi-million-tonne market for fish feed. But that leaves plenty of room for growth. This is, moreover, a growth that may bring environmental benefits as well as economic ones. Today, a lot of fish food is itself fish. Insect farming could help relieve the oceans of that burden, and improve the prospect of the adage that “there are plenty more fish in the sea” actually being true.

目前，像Ynsect和AgriProtein這樣以生產(chǎn)噸數(shù)為目標(biāo)的公司，與數(shù)百萬噸的魚類飼料市場相比，仍然微不足道。但這也留下了很大的發(fā)展空間。此外，這種增長可能帶來環(huán)境效益和經(jīng)濟(jì)效益。今天，很多魚的食物本身就是魚。昆蟲養(yǎng)殖可以幫助海洋減輕這一負(fù)擔(dān)，并改善“海中有更多的魚”這句格言的景愿，落實(shí)這句話。

詞匯

Adage/ ?格言，諺語