What:    Launch a new FAO book: Six-legged livestock: edible insect farming, collecting and marketing in Thailand. The event will be a lunch-time book launch and signing ceremony with two of the authors of a book that explores Thailand’s thriving edible insect sector. More than 20 000 insect farming enterprises are registered in the country; most are small-scale household operations. Insect farming and collecting has become is a significant economic activity in Thailand in the past two decades, driven by strong market demand and supported by university research and extension and innovative private-sector food processors and sellers. Overall, insect farming, collection, processing, transport and marketing has emerged as a multi-million dollar sector, providing income and employment for tens of thousands of Thai people, and healthy and nutritious food for millions of consumers.

Tuesday’s book launch and signing follows the release of the FAO report: Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security, which was issued at the International Conference on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition in Rome 13-15 May. That report looks at the global market for edible insects. The new publication to be released in Bangkok on 21 May complements the global report with a focused review of the sector in Thailand, which represents one of the most dynamic areas in the world for human consumption of insects.

Who:      Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific, who penned the forward to the book; Lead Author Yupa Hanboonsong, Associate Professor of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University; and  Author Patrick Durst, FAO Senior Forestry Officer, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

Snacks and Soft drinks will be offered at the book-signing.
One-on-one interviews with the authors will be possible.

When:  11:30 Tuesday, 21 May 2013.

Where:  Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) Penthouse, Maneeya Bldg., 518/5 Phloen Chit Rd., beside Amarin Plaza, nearest BTS station is Chitlom Station. (Phone:+66 2 652 0580-1)