In a warehouse in the lush humid farmlands of central Thailand, thousands of pythons lie coiled in containers, rearing and striking at the glass as people pass by.
They are being raised for their robust, diamond-patterned skins, which are sold to high-end European fashion houses for belts, bags and handbags, but some scientists and industry insiders believe the snakes’ true value could lie in their meat.
Demand for meat is growing globally, despite the carbon footprint associated with traditional livestock, and while a plant-based diet is often touted as the best alternative, some feel reptiles have been overlooked as an option.
Snakes can tolerate high temperatures and drought, reproduce quickly, and grow far faster than traditional sources of animal protein, while consuming a lot less food.
Researchers estimate that China and Vietnam alone have at least 4,000 python farms, producing several million snakes, mostly for the fashion industry.
“Python farming may offer a flexible and efficient response to global food insecurity,” concluded a study published earlier this year in the journal Nature.
The researchers spent a year studying nearly 5,000 reticulated and Burmese pythons at two commercial farms in Vietnam and Thailand.
“They can survive for months on end with no food at all and no water ... they won’t lose condition at all,” said Patrick Aust, director of the African Institute of Applied Herpetology and one of the scientists involved in the study.
The pythons were fed waste chicken and wild-caught rodents and offered a more efficient feed-to-meat ratio than poultry, beef and even crickets.
That is music to the ears of Emilio Malucchi, whose farm in central Thailand’s Uttaradit houses around 9,000 pythons.
Malucchi has had little success convincing people to take up snake meat, and most of what he produces is either discarded or goes to fish farms.
“It’s a complete waste,” he said.
Wild python has long been eaten throughout South-East Asia, but the meat has yet to attract widespread international interest despite offering a chicken-like texture low in saturated fats.
“The problem is that there is no market for python flesh. We need to educate people about its possibilities,” said Malucchi.
The climate impact of meat has been extensively documented, with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noting that meat from grazing animals – mainly beef – has been “consistently identified as the single food with the greatest impact on the environment.”
While the UN and climate activists advocate moving to a more plant-based diet, the OECD estimates demand for meat will increase 14% by 2032, driven by population growth in low-income regions and rising living standards in Asian countries.
Meanwhile, drought and extreme weather are making traditional farming increasingly difficult in many parts of the world where the need for protein is urgent.
Protein-energy malnutrition, sometimes called protein-energy undernutrition, caused nearly 190,000 deaths globally in 2021, according to the Global Burden of Disease study. — AFP
