It turns out China has a booming trade in cockroaches that can earn as much as 1200 yuan per kilogram, or $89 per pound. The roaring roach trade began when a Yunnan medical professor noticed elderly ethnic minorities in the area’s mountains pulverizing roaches to cure bone tuberculosis. It took more than a decade of research, but he eventually figured out what they were up to, patenting roach powder as a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) ingredient and cooperating with what’s now perhaps the biggest world’s biggest producer of medicinal raw cockroach-related materials. The powder is used to treat cirrhosis, breast cancer and other ailments, and reputedly also has anti-aging effects (links in Chinese).
But even with a large-scale farm in Yunnan, there’s not enough ground-up cockroach powder (link in Chinese) to meet demand. That’s why Wang and other gutsy entrepreneurs have taken up “cockroach ranching,” as the New York Times’ Chris Buckley put it. And some are already making a tidy bundle.
I Word Understanding
Booming Trade – lively and profitable business.
Roaching roach – cock roach cultivation.
Bone tuberculosis – tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially fatal contagious disease that can affect almost any part of the body but is mainly an infection of the lungs.
Cirrhosis – is type of liver disease that includes inflammation and damage to cells.
Cockroach ranching – cockroach raising.
Gutsy Entrepreneur – robust person who organizes and operates a business.
Tidy bundle – clean and organized roll up (a number of things) together as though into a parcel.
II Have your say
1. It sounds terrifying as it may be. Who knew roaches could be so… valuable?
2. You might be in gazed that lab-grown cockroaches are sold with vanilla and chocolate flavor
in Singapore. It is approved by Singaporean Food and Drug Administration.
3. The United Nations has a strong campaign for Bugs and insects eating for dietary eating and
alternative foods. Few of those are scorpion, bamboo worms, cricket. Do you know any edible
insects in your country?
207 Chinese cockroach farmers are making a bundle selling pulverized bugs for $89 per lb.
