Global food systems crisis: How entomophagy’s systemic suppression obscures Indigenous resilience and climate solutions
Original framing: “How ancient insect-eating diets could inspire more sustainable food systems” — Phys.org
Indigenous entomophagy is a **land-based knowledge system**, not a 'dietary option.' The Maya *ts’iib* (leafcutter ant) farms, for example, were part of a symbiotic relationship with *ch’ulel* (milpa) agroforestry, where ants pruned plants and fertilized soil—a closed-loop system dismantled by colonial land enclosures. The !Kung San of the Kalahari use *mopane worms* (*gonya*) in seasonal cycles tied to rainfall patterns, a climate-resilient model now co-opted by South African agribusinesses without acknowledgment. The erasure of these practices isn’t just cultural; it’s **ecological amnesia**—forgetting that insects were the original 'regenerative agriculture.'
The mainstream narrative of entomophagy as a 'new' solution obscures a **centuries-old, Indigenous-led climate adaptation** systematically erased by colonial food hierarchies and industrial agriculture.
The power structures at play—**corporate patenting of traditional practices, regulatory capture by livestock lobbies, and the cultural stigma imposed by Western diets**—replicate the same extractive logics that drove past food crises. What’s needed isn’t just 'scaling entomophagy' but **decolonizing food systems**: returning land to Indigenous stewards, redirecting subsidies from industrial meat to peasant insect farms, and centering the **marginalized voices** (women, Dalits, Baka pygmies) who have always sustained these practices. The **Trickster** reminds us that without structural justice, even 'sustainable' insect farming risks becoming just another tool of **neoliberal greenwashing**—where the past is commodified, and the future remains controlled by the same actors who created the crisis. The path forward lies in **Indigenous land trusts, subsidy redirects, and a global Knowledge Commons**—not in venture capital or lab coats, but in the **reclaimed wisdom of those who never stopped knowing.