Monday 1 September 2014

Cockroaches Farming: Used For Treating Baldness, AIDS And Cancer

The 43-year-old businessman is the largest cockroach producer in China (and thus probably in the world), with six farms populated by an estimated 10 million cockroaches. He sells them to producers of Asian medicine and to cosmetic companies that value the insects as a cheap source of protein as well as for the cellulose-like substance on their wings.
The favoured breed for this purpose is the Periplaneta americana, or American cockroach, a reddish-brown insect that grows to about 1.6 inches long and, when mature, can fly, as opposed to the smaller, darker, wingless German cockroach. 
Since Wang got into the business in 2010, the price of dried cockroaches has increased tenfold, from about $2 a pound to as much as $20, as manufacturers of traditional medicine stockpile pulverized cockroach powder.

"I thought about raising pigs, but with traditional farming, the profit margins are very low," Wang said. "With cockroaches, you can invest 20 yuan and get back 150 yuan," or $3.25 for a return of $11.
China has about 100 cockroach farms, and new ones are opening almost as fast as the prolific critters breed. But even among Chinese, the industry was little known until August, when a million cockroaches got out of a farm in neighbouring Jiangsu province. The Great Escape made headlines around China and beyond, evoking biblical images of swarming locusts.

"People laughed at me when I started, but I always thought that cockroaches would bring me wealth," said Zou Hui, 40, who quit her job at a knitting factory in 2008 after seeing a television program about raising cockroaches.
It's not exactly a fortune, but the $10,000 she brings in annually selling cockroaches is decent money for her hometown in rural Sichuan province, and won her an award last year from local government as an "Expert in Getting Wealthy."

"Now I'm teaching four other families," Zou said. "They want to get rich like me."
At least five pharmaceutical companies are using cockroaches for traditional Chinese medicine. Research is underway in China (and South Korea) on the use of pulverized cockroaches for treating baldness, AIDS and cancer and as a vitamin supplement. South Korea's Jeonnam Province Agricultural Research Institute and China's Dali University College of Pharmacy have published papers on the anti-carcinogenic properties of the cockroach.

Li Shunan, a 78-year-old professor of traditional medicine from the south-western province of Yunnan who is considered the godfather of cockroach research, said he discovered in the 1960s that ethnic minorities near the Vietnamese border were using a cockroach paste to treat bone tuberculosis.

"Cockroaches are survivors," Li said. "We want to know what makes them so strong — why they can even resist nuclear effects."

In Jinan, Wang Fuming and his wife, who run the farm together, seem genuinely fond of their cockroaches and a little hurt that others don't feel affection.

"What is disgusting about them?" Li Wanrong, Wang's wife, asked as a roach scurried around her black leather pumps. "Look how beautiful they are. So shiny!"
Over lunch at a restaurant down the block from his farm, Wang placed a plate of fried cockroaches seasoned with salt on the table along with more conventional cuisine, and proceeded to nibble a few with his chopsticks. He expressed disapproval that visiting journalists refused to sample the roaches.

On saying goodbye at the end of the day, he added a final rejoinder.

"You will regret your whole life not trying them."


2 comments:

  1. Wonders will never end

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  2. Sciencetist comes up with odds and strange research all the time

    ReplyDelete