Jamie Mackay: The Country host on huhu grub farming gaining more interest

Some experts believe huhu grub faming could be the way of the future.

Huhu grubs are being touted as an alternative protein source that could solve food security issues - and potentially help the nation's forestry slash problems.

The Country's Jamie Mackay says there's a history of huhu consumption in New Zealand, with Māori confirming the grubs are safe for consumption. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jamie McKay Hosts of the Countries with us. Now, hey, Jamie,
that's how you get six hundred grandly watched the pennies
and the pounds look after themselves? Who right, and then
you can make it a lot more than that. Jamie.
That's very good advice. Thank you for that. Listen. I
hear that there's some talk of us getting into who
who grubbed farming? Is this going to take off? Well?
I don't know who knew it was a thing I

(00:20):
picked up on a story online. And the good news
about who who grub farming, Heather is it could solve
a very troubling forestry slash problem. So who who grubs
have been a valuable and sustainable food sauce here in
New Zealand. Maori had long held that who who grubs
and nutritious and safe for human consumption, and the environmental

(00:41):
benefit is that basically you feed him up on the
forestry slash. And I didn't realize this either, but some
guy by the name of Patrick Clements as far back
as the early nineteen eighties was writing in the New
Zealand Farmer suggesting that we should be farming who who grubb?
And he makes where he made an important for converting
wood to edible proteins because grubs are rich in proteins,

(01:04):
minerals and fats. In fact, who who grubs heather who
knew this have high proteins or proteins as high as
thirty percent. That's higher than beef, lamb chicken, and chickpeas.
They're also rich in amino acids, and insects around the
world have been domesticated. I guess you have to tame
who who grubs before you eat them, and they're being

(01:26):
farmed sustainably. But in all seriousness, I think letting the
who who grubs domestically farming them and letting them loose
on the forestry slash is a great way to convert
wasted wood into proteins. Sounds smart. Have you ever tried one? No,
and I don't want to. Well, there's your problem, Jamie,
is that it's going to the mindset shift that you

(01:49):
have to take to eat one of these things that
does not look like something you would normally. Putting him
out is quite a lot. Yeah, but we might be
able to export Whoho grub to other places around world
where people don't give a tough about gecking grubs. Yeah,
I like that. Hays Ban Aaron who who grubs farming?
Jeez Jamie, when you put your money there, I will

(02:10):
put it in my mouth. And let's just say it
like that. Okay. If I see you backing this as
an export idea, I'm going to eat one for you.
Listen to the live exports. The demand is waiting for this, apparently,
is it. Yeah, Well, you might remember that the Labor
government put a ban on live animal exports by sea
in April of last year. The current government's talking about

(02:32):
reopening this and this is and you and I have
discussed this before. It's been very divisive in the New
Zealand farming community. It's almost fifty to fifty split down
the middle. Look, it was worth potentially five hundred million
to US half a billion a year. But what a
latest story just released report from Ravo Bank is saying
is that the demand has slowed to a trickle in

(02:52):
China for our dairy heifers. Because that's basically what we
were sending over there. So even if we do re
state this previously lucrative a live dairy trade the heifers
to China, we may not get much demand because look
back and back in twenty twenty two it peaked it
this is out of Australasia, US and the ossis two

(03:14):
hundred and thirty thousand head. We've sent eight hundred and
fifteen thousand dairy heifers from Australia and New Zealand and
the five years up to twenty twenty three. However, as
I said, it's just it's trickled to a holt now
annual decline of eighty three percent. These cows, all these
dairy heifers were worth US three thousand dollars, that's like

(03:35):
over five grand and our money. But now they've last
year they fell to fifteen hundred. So even if we
were reinstate this we may not have a market. Jamie,
thank you, appreciate it. Jamie McKay, Host to the Country.
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