The former computer intelligence consultant of America Edward Snowden has tweeted on his account saying, “people are like “I’m not going to eat the crickets.” oh you’re gonna eat the crickets, brother. they’re gonna be everywhere. they’re gonna put em in Hot Pockets. your kids are gonna be like “mom! i want the pizza crickets!”
people are like "I'm not going to eat the crickets."
oh you're gonna eat the crickets, brother. they're gonna be everywhere. they're gonna put em in Hot Pockets. your kids are gonna be like "mom! i want the pizza crickets!"
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 18, 2022
The tweet has gathered 2,812 Retweets as of yet and it is attracting more people into it. Netizens have been theorizing Snowden’s tweet in several ways. We are going to put up netizens remarks based on Snowden’s relatively harmless tweet.
A Twitter handle has talked about the recent obsession of government with QR code and crickets. As per reports we know that the U.S. has been one of those countries that adopted QR codes at an early. Nowadays use of QR codes has increased rapidly. According to the reports of Statista almost 11 million household scanned a QR code in 2020. Amid the pandemic government entities used QR codes most frequently to deliver safe services from a distance. So, the QR code and cricket might symbolizes an government tracking entity as claimed by the Twitter handle.
Cricket has been on charts for a long period of time while scientists are busy discovering whether we can consume insects as a source of protein or not. Several alternative healthline practitioners has stated crickets had been in use as source of protein since biblical scriptures dating back from the third to first century B.C. A website named healthline posted on their blog on May 6, 2021, “People have used crickets as a food source in many parts of the world for thousands of years. In fact, biblical scriptures dating back from the third to the first century B.C. mention cricket consumption. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, eating insects is part of traditional cultures. People use about 2,100 species of insects for food, with crickets being the most common insect food source worldwide. Insects are a cheap, sustainable, and easy-to-produce source of nutrients and are especially rich in protein.”
This one combines my favorite right wing conspiracy theories, crickets and QR code. Come on people Swonden revealed a possible panopticon of control using the internet and mobile telephones and you think QR and crickets are the best they can come up with? https://t.co/ybXi8gOUFB
— Lennart Reus (@lennartreus) July 18, 2022
However, the Twitter handle didn’t establish the motivation behind making that remark and how QR codes are crickets reveals government’s “control using the internet” isn’t clear.
Another Twitter handle added a tweet including a picture from The Economist’s “The coming food catastrophe,” which was published on May 19, 2022. The Economist published the article on how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is responsible for a surge of economic crisis that has already began. The world’s economy was already shattered due to a two year long pandemic and now the war has added fuel to the fire only. The scale of this crisis will be such that its impact will be felt across globe. The Economist wrote, “The war is battering a global food system weakened by covid-19, climate change and an energy shock. Ukraine’s exports of grain and oilseeds have mostly stopped and Russia’s are threatened. Together, the two countries supply 12% of traded calories. Wheat prices, up 53% since the start of the year, jumped a further 6% on May 16th, after India said it would suspend exports because of an alarming heatwave.”
According to the reports the UN secretary general António Guterres said that the spectre of global food shortage will haunt us for years with high cost of staple food almost 250 million are expected to be at the brink of famine as the war stopped supplies that usually come from Russia and Ukraine.
Very right Eddy. More info on this: https://t.co/k82jxVodmp
— bitbreather (@bitbreather_) July 18, 2022
The reason behind Snowden’s tweet has not been discovered yet. However, it is sure that crickets is all we are going to eat if food crisis becomes an never ending phenomenon.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine the food commodity market has observed a steep collapse in food supply chain. Food items such as wheat, corn, oil seeds, and other commodity crops and fuel, fertilizers prices increased following the shortfalls.
According to the reports in February 2022 food prices were 20% high and in March due to the war the prices increased another 40%. African regions such as East Africa and Madagascar has been experiencing drought and famine due to failure in the agricultural system and sudden price hike. Even developed nations such as the UK and US has started to experience a direct cost inflation due to food insecurity.
The current surge of heatwave has even made the food production worst. In 2022 India was going to export wheat to fill the global wheat crisis gaps raised by Russia Ukraine war. But the nation had to stop its export due to the excessive heatwave that hampered local wheat production. The ongoing war impacted the fertilizer market and shortened its supply which devastated healthy crops along with the alarming heatwave.
On March at the United Nation’s meeting the US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said, “The world, as we have heard, was already facing a food security crisis well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis pushed millions of families into poverty. Countries around the world are grappling with drought and other disasters made worse by climate change. As we heard from Executive Director Beasley, the World Food Program is already feeding 138 million people in more than 80 countries – from Ethiopia to Afghanistan, South Sudan to Yemen, Nigeria to Syria. But now, Putin’s war is driving up the costs of providing food assistance. And the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, estimates that as many as 13 million more people worldwide may be pushed into food insecurity as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
