As the world’s human population expands, scientists are searching for new sustainable sources of protein. Experts estimate that 28.9 percent of the global population is moderately or severely food insecure, meaning they do not have regular access to adequate food. Climate change, reduced natural resources and the spread of infectious diseases are expected to exacerbate the problem. Traditional sources of protein—cattle, pigs and chickens—carry a heavy environmental burden. They consume grain, pollute water and emit greenhouse gases. Raising them taxes the planet. Python farming may offer a new path.
A Leaner, Cleaner Protein Source
Dan Natusch, a herpetologist at Macquarie University in Australia, saw promise where few have looked. In Vietnam and Thailand, python farms already raise snakes for skin and trade. But Natusch and his colleagues noticed something else: the snakes grow fast. They measured the snakes’ growth rate and what they ate. What the researchers found, as reported in Scientific Reports, was striking.
Pythons, it turns out, are champions of efficiency. They’re cold-blooded. They don’t burn calories to keep warm. Instead, they soak up heat from the sun. That reduces the energy they need to generate and the calories they need to consume. Their bodies convert what they eat into flesh with notable success. The mean food conversion ratio is 4.1 to 1. That means for every 4.1 grams of food, a python yields one gram of meat. Chickens, pigs, cows and even crickets fall short of this level of efficiency.
When it comes to protein, the numbers speak louder. Pythons boast a protein conversion ratio of 2.4. Compared to 20.5 for poultry, 37.5 for pork and 83.3 for beef, this sets pythons apart as leaders in the ability to provide a protein source for human consumption efficiently. “Farming pythons could be a big part of the solution for a part of the world that is already suffering from severe protein deficiency,” Natusch said.
Built for Survival
Pythons grow quickly, with females growing faster than males. Even when fasting, the snakes lose little weight. Some go more than four months without food, losing just 0.004% of their body mass per day. When fed again, they bounce back fast.
“Observing the ability of relatively young snakes to go many months without food and remain in a healthy state with minimal loss of body condition was really astounding,” Natusch said.
This trait matters. In times of crisis—like during the early days of the COVID pandemic—farmers had difficulty maintaining steady supplies of food for pigs and cows. But pythons can wait. They don’t need daily grain or water. They hold their ground.
Python waste is also less polluting than traditional livestock, so farming them generates fewer greenhouse gases and less water pollution than raising chickens, pigs or cows.
A Cultural Shift?
The real question is appetite. Will people eat snake meat? In Southeast Asia, parts of Africa and Latin America, a billion people already do. In those regions, pythons are a normal part of the diet. But Western cultures—where large reptiles are rare—may resist. Still, Natusch insists, “Python meat is pretty tasty and versatile.”
Monika Zurek, a food systems scientist at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the research, agrees the findings are promising. At the same time, she pointed out that more information is needed about the environmental impacts of python farming and the nutritional content, including micronutrients, of the meat they provide. “The current study opens up an interesting step in that direction, but you need to complement that with a whole bunch of additional studies to look at these other aspects before you can really say, ‘Yeah, that’s an option,’” she said.
As the world’s food systems face environmental stressors and increasing demands, python farming offers a possible alternative. It may not be an attractive option for everyone yet, but in a world that needs new ways to provide food for a rapidly expanding population, the big snake has something to offer.
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