back to article Cisco's John Chambers: Robot farmers will feed bloated cricket thoraxes to our children

The outgoing executive chairman of Cisco, John Chambers, has made no secret about his desire to invest in drones in his life after the Borg. But now he has also revealed his passion for cricket farming. Speaking at the Techonomy conference for the last time before stepping down as chairman of Cisco next month, Chambers spoke …

  1. x 7

    Crickets?

    I'd have thought locusts would be a better bet: grow bigger so more meat, and better vegetable to meat conversion. Also they eat a wider range of foodstuffs.

    Besides which you can deep fry them for use in hot dogs

    1. GrumpyOldBloke

      Locusts, you can but dream. By the time the US food companies are done with them it will be 50% sawdust and GMO high starch filler, 40% GMO soy, corn syrup and artificial flavouring, 5% preservative and 5% undisclosed byproducts of the pharmaceutical industry. The big label on the front showing a cartoon image of a super locust will be as close as you will get to your fantasy protein source.

    2. Muscleguy

      Locusts?

      THIS is a cricket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_weta

      Weta are giant flightless crickets. In the bush the smaller sort fill a niche occupied by mice in Northern Hemisphere forests. The giant sort are perfectly harmless and peaceful but the bush wetas are grumpy and aggressive and BITE.

  2. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
  3. Chazmon

    I have been intrigued by this idea for some time. If it is burger shaped, tasty and nutritious I really don't care about the source whether it be cow, insect or petri dish. I draw the line at human, that is not cool.

    1. tiggity Silver badge

      But human is the only option for vegans who are vegan for ethical reasons..

      As humans can chooose to donate cells to be eaten so removing lack of consent ethical issues

      I'm setting up my startup catering to PC vegans, I'm collecting (with consent) the unwanted dangly bits of males who undergo male to female gender re-assignment surgery, and making premium quality sausages from them.

      Only problem is lack of sausage size consistency as large variation in volume of individual donated tissue

      .., add you own not very serious icon of choice

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I always wondered about vegans and ethically sourced animal that died from natural causes or was in an accident. Would that be ok or would they need to carry donor cards?

        If it is then I my company is going to called "Roadkill Roasts"

        1. jake Silver badge

          Problem is ...

          ... vegans aren't logical.

        2. Eddy Ito

          Re: "Roadkill Roasts"

          You might want to team up with Pamela over at www.peacefur.com as I'd wager your business models would complement each other nicely.

    2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      I draw the line at human, that is not cool.

      Human is fine (absent ethical issues) as long as you don't eat the spine or brain.

      All of which rather makes politicians the perfect food. May I offer you a BorisBurger? Or maybe a May Fricasse?

    3. wayward4now
      Paris Hilton

      "I really don't care about the source whether it be cow, insect or petri dish. I draw the line at human, that is not cool." Wait, is eating the rich not an option any more?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm not sure about the robot farming. It's just not cricket.

    1. Haku

      Robot farming?

      *has visions of BigDogs herding sheep in the countryside*

  5. Elmer Phud

    The Big Mac Mosquito with moho!

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: If you're that worried about the environment...

      miss out the animals altogether and just eat beans

      And, as a bonus, you can generate plenty of methane for running power stations..

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Meh...

    ..it's no big deal.

    Ground Crickets are very dry to eat I've found, but can be used in flour, but currently UK prices are astronomical.

    Meal worms, nice little snack, a little like twiglets if you you like them.

    Not over keen on grubs, similar texture to tomatoes, i.e. firm outside, squishy inside...and I hate raw tomatoes.

    As an additive to say cereal or bread products, I say go for it.

    Anything to piss the Vegans off.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    "world’s first automated cricket farm"

    So even the crickets are getting thrown out of their jobs by robots now? I guess we'll have to (literally) throw them a few crumbs through some kind of cricket Universal Basic Income.

  9. Anomalous Cowshed

    It is important - it is vital - that something be done to ensure that these rich "visionaries" are not allowed to trample on our lives and those of our future generations.

  10. Eddy Ito

    Wouldn't ants be easier? The robot would only have to spill a little simple syrup and come back a day later to suck up the lot of them by following the trail of scurrying workers back to the nest. Heck, it wouldn't be but a $25 tweak to a roomba.

    1. Muscleguy

      I grew up in Auckland, NZ where if you don't wipe up every little tiny smear of syrup or jam AND keep your sugar in a sealed container in the fridge it will be BLACK with ants in the morning.

      I was helping my father paint the roof (corrugated iron, de rigeur) once and there was a line of ants up the front of the house (1 1/2 stories), across the roof and down 2 stories (house goes down the hill) to a pot of ant poison placed on the rail of the downstairs deck, and back.

      Auckland and the top of the North Island of NZ are sub tropical. Coming back from university down south on my motorbike at term end the amount of insect strike on my faceplate and bike went up noticeably as I descended off the central volcanic plateau heading north.

  11. jake Silver badge

    Crickerts taste & crunch ...

    ... almost exactly like popcorn with a hint of shrimp[0]. I toss 'em with a little salt and some chili powder[1], and sometimes throw in a little lime zest. Tasty, cheap, and nutritious. What's not to like? You can easily find them online as "Chapulines", if you have the mind to do so.

    [0] The ones a friend sends me from Mexico, anyway.

    [1] Usually Jalapino powder, but sometimes I'll go hotter. Depends on who I'm preparing them for.

  12. AR2027

    Any one for culona?

    Remember my old Colombian colleague going on about em.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In 15-20 years?

    That's utterly ridiculous, at least in the west where it would take a couple generations at the minimum to change attitudes to where eating insects was acceptable to most let alone preferred over animal protein.

    The only way this happens is if he's got some crazy ideas about an impending agricultural disaster that will decimate livestock by then, so people will have no choice because not many could or would afford a $500 burger or bucket of fried chicken!

  14. Duffy Moon

    Why?

    What's wrong with vegetable proteins or mycoprotein (Quorn?).

    If it has to be meat, I think lab-grown stuff will be more popular than insects.

    1. Baldrickk

      Re: Why?

      I've tried Quorn. It lacks in taste and texture compared to the meat it tries to replace.

      If it wasn't trying and failing to be meat, I might eat it more (make it its own thing).

      As a concept, I think it's great.

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: Why?

        I've tried Quorn. It lacks in taste and texture compared to the meat it tries to replace.

        This. Why do vegetablists want to replicate the texture and flavour of the meat? If I was to go that way, I'd probably be happy to eat the stuff but making it look and taste like meat[1] would soon send me back to the real stuff..

        [1] Does bacon qualify as meat? I don't think I could give it up.. and I've tried turkey bacon. Tastes neither like turkey or bacon and so fails on both fronts.

  15. ThatOne Silver badge

    Optimism?

    I'm wondering how much more interesting cricket farming might be, compared to raising mammals.

    If you make cricket meat a normal meal (as opposed to high profit snacks) you will need to raise huge quantities of them, with all the problems this entails (food, waste, containment, preventing diseases).

    Also, there is the chitin exoskeleton problem: Is there an industrial way to remove it? Peeling shrimps is already quite complicated and expensive, and they are much simpler built (I think). Yes, I know you can eat it, but eating great quantities of chitin every other day might create digestive problems (at least for some people), not to mention potential technical problems in waste water treatment (clogging, etc.).

  16. EnviableOne
    IT Angle

    so has it not escaped notice that any US startups that get anywhere get borged by there friendly sector specific megaZilla?

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