News excerpt:

A python is seen inside an enclosure at Closed Cycle Breeding International, a snake breeding farm that provides snake skins for the fashion market in Nam Phi in Thailand’s northern Uttaradit province on July 15, 2024.

More detail about news:

• According to some experts, demand for meat is growing globally and while a plant-based diet is often touted as the best alternative, some feel reptiles have been overlooked as an option.
• Researchers estimate that China and Vietnam alone have at least 4,000 python farms, producing several million snakes, mostly for the fashion industry.

About Python farming:

• Ectotherms (cold-blooded animals) are approximately 90% more energy efficient than endotherms. In the context of agriculture, this energy differential readily translates into a potential for higher production efficiency. 
• It is partly for this reason that the aquaculture and insect farming industries are currently experiencing rapid growth rates. 
• Like insects, snakes are a traditional source of protein in many tropical countries, and their consumption is linked to important food, medicinal, and cultural values. 
• As demand for snake meat and co-products has increased in line with development, so too have production systems. Over the last two decades, snake farming has expanded to include more species, production models, and markets, partly as a result of competitive agricultural advantages.

Significance of Python Farming:

• 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.
• "Python farming may offer a flexible and efficient response to global food insecurity," concluded a study published earlier this year in the journal Nature.
• They can survive for months on end with no food at all and no water, and literally they won't lose condition at all.
• 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.
• They also reproduce rapidly, with female pythons laying between 50 and 100 eggs annually.
• 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.
• Protein-energy malnutrition, sometimes called protein-energy undernutrition, caused nearly 190,000 deaths globally in 2021, according to the Global Burden of Disease study.

Issues related to Python Farming:

• Wild python has long been eaten throughout Southeast 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.
• The climate impact of meat has been extensively documented, with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noting that meat from grazing animals has been "consistently identified as the single food with the greatest impact on the environment.
• That effect is both in terms of greenhouse emissions and land use change.
• Meanwhile, drought and extreme weather are making traditional farming increasingly difficult in many parts of the world where the need for protein is urgent.

Conclusion:

Commercial production of pythons is in its infancy, with farms receiving minimal scientific input or optimisation through formal channels for agricultural development. Even in its current relatively crude format, python farming appears to offer tangible benefits for sustainability and food systems resilience.