A Farm Inside A Shipping Container

Jakub Dzamba’s enthusiasm to build a community of sorts that operates a cricket farm and feeds from it has led him to using the Countertop Cricket Reactor as a prototype. With the first round of funding ready from Humber College, Dzamba plans to building a farm inside a shipping container.

The container which will be placed at Humber College will use food waste from the hospitality program to feed the insects; and in return provide them with harvested bugs to cook. The project will collect the cricket poop and use it as a fertilizer.

Dzamba has roped in Entomo Farms as well for the venture and hopes that this shipping container can be used in countries and communities that require food and livelihood. “In Mexico, the men go to the fields and don’t return for days as the farms are far. The women are usually left to care for the children. I hope that these shipping containers can prove to be a backyard-farm where the women can work as the labour is minimal and earn some extra money for the family,” he says.

While the container will sit at Humber college, the crickets will be fed food waste generated from the Hospitality programs at Humber. Chef Mark Jachecki who is a professor in the hospitality program was also seen making cricket hot dogs, bug smoothie and cricket tacos at the CNE. So of course, Dzamba decided to pull him in for the project. “I’m working on recipes with mealworms, crickets and grasshoppers. But I love working with mealworms because of their flavour,” he says. While Jachecki’s recipes are top secret for now, he says that he is working on creating dishes that are common and such that anyone would order it. “Everyone loves hotdogs, so I had cricket hotdogs at the CNE…that’s the idea,” he says.