DEBATE TIME 14 Read these newspaper articles and use them as food for thought for debating the following motions. 1. The new trends in insect farming endanger the Mediterranean food tradition. Insects Could Help Increase Europe’s Food Self-Sufficiency but Will They Catch On? As the world population grows, it will be a challenge to meet everyone’s nutritional needs with traditional sources of protein. Insects in products such as pasta or bread, microalgae, and single-cell proteins derived from wood could feed and nourish humans and animals in the future. Now, those exploring alternative proteins for more sustainable eating are working out how to make the switch to bug-based food a reality. While in Asian, African and Latin American countries, foraged insects are a regular part of the diets of about 2 billion people, in Europe, there exists a cultural barrier and the protection of culinary traditions. Adapted from: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/insects-could-help-increase-europes-food-self-sufficiency-will-they-catch 2. CAFOs should be banned. Industrial Farming is One of the Worst Crimes in History The fate of industrially farmed animals is one of the most pressing ethical questions of our time. Tens of billions of sentient beings, each with complex sensations and emotions, live and die on a production line. Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history. The march of human progress is scattered with dead animals. Even tens of thousands of years ago, our stone age ancestors were already responsible for a series of ecological disasters. When the first humans reached Australia about 45,000 years ago, they quickly drove to extinction 90% of its large animals. This was the first significant impact that Homo sapiens had on the planet’s ecosystem. It was not the last. Adapted from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question