Caterpillar keeping – part #1

​My collaborators and I are trying to develop a way to breed the edible shea caterpillar year-round.

It’s not going to be easy, but having received our initial funding from the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition, we’re determined to give it a go.

Our first steps are to further our understanding of the caterpillars’ only food source – the leaves of the shea tree – and to try breeding the adult moths in a controlled environment.

And these are two of the reasons that I’m here in Burkina Faso at the moment. 

The view from my house. As you can see, it’s very definitely the dry season. Nearly all of the trees in this photo are shea trees.

​So far, it’s going surprisingly well.

I’m collecting solvent samples from the leaves, which we’ll use to analyse the compounds on the leaf surface that may signal to the caterpillars that they are good to eat. We need to know a lot more about the leaves, because these picky caterpillars eat absolutely nothing else. Previous experiments have shown that when their only option is a different leaf species, they starve to death.

Some solvent dip samples, and a cluster of shea leaves to show you what’s inside the tubes. The leaves get suspended in the solvent (hexane or ethanol) for a set time period and then removed, leaving behind traces of the compounds on their surface

I’m also collecting pupae. These caterpillars spend nine months of the year underground, waiting for the rains to come in May/June. Right now, they’re submerged in the dry soil to a depth that’s similar to the measurement between your fingertips and your elbow. I can’t go around digging up other peoples’ fields – but I can ask the farmers if they’re happy to do so! Paid work is scarce here, and in under 24 hours I already have over 30 pupae, which is even more than I need.

The 30 pupae that neighbouring farmers have managed to gather for me. Now, my challenge is to keep them alive as far as the UK border…

A third reason I’m here is to pilot a food security survey, with the help of several key informants and local translators. Immigrant Mossi families live alongside indigenous Bobo and Dioula families, and several of the women come from neighbouring Dagara villages. Each of these names represents a different ethnicity, and a different language. ​

A few pictures from yesterday, taken on request when I was visiting a friend. The people shown here are from two of the families I’ll be interviewing

​How food-secure are they, during and outside of the caterpillar harvesting season? All profit from the caterpillar harvest, but to what extent? And do caterpillars play any role in their food security throughout the year? 

These are some of the questions I’ll be looking at.

I’m apprehensive about asking questions on food security. I worry about how to do so without appearing patronizing, condescending or naïve. And I worry about the answers I’ll be hearing, and how it feels to be the person giving those answers. 

If you’re reading this and have any insights or advice, particularly from personal experience (I'm using HFIAS questions, which were also used in this recent article looking at caterpillars and food security in South Africa), please do email me or leave a message below, I’d love to hear from you.