Mopane Worm Problems Effect The Poorest - Southern African Traditional Foods

Mopane worms are critical to nutrition and income generation for most households in those rural areas in Africa where the mopane tree grows. However, climate change and over harvesting of the worms as one of the few income generating opportunities in rural areas are threatening the species’ survival.

Mopane worms are the caterpillar stage of the Emperor Moth, Gonimbrasia belina, which feed almost exclusively on the mopane tree Colophospermum mopane. The mopane worm harvest in South Africa is estimated at $40 million a year, of which approximately 40 percent goes to producers who are primarily poor rural women. In addition to the income generated dried mopane worms can contribute significantly to rural household nutrition mainly through their 53.3 percent dry weight digestible protein content.

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Traditionally mopane worms are collected by women, cleaned and, dried so that they could be stored and used as a household protein source. With urbanisation commercial trade was established in mopane worms to address the demand from migrant worker and eventually the city dweller. Today the mopane worm is sold widely throughout the region in both formal and informal retail trade across national borders. The dried worm can be eaten as a snack or used as a protein source in stews.

The dry mopane worm has little taste and is crisp but crumbles easily. The taste is sometimes described as tea like while others detect a meaty taste. They are often salted in the cooking and drying process and are recently being flavoured with crisp spices. The dry mopane when rehydrated and cooked has little body and tends to solubilise. Overall not a very exciting food except for those used to it.

Today mopane worms are sold as novelty snacks in the UK, at a price that would make a harvester smile — $380 per kilogram selling price compared to a $3 per kilogram wholesale price in South Africa. But its the on the ground issues that effect the poor.

Harvesting, which takes place in two short periods in January and April if the weather is right, is mostly done by women who hand pick the caterpillars from the trees or shake the branches to dislodge worms. Up to 50 kg of worms are collected, eviscerated, boiled and dried in the sun to produce the shelf stable crispy product.

The “crop” is dependent on the weather which is in turn becoming more variable. With the large demand and the income opportunity for very poor rural people there is a tendency to over harvest. Some researchers are convinced that the mopane is being overexploited and that the numbers are reducing.

This possible threat to a food source and income generation vehicle has lead to renewed attempts to farm mopane worms. Early simplistic attempt to simply raise mopane worms on a variety of leaf material were unsuccessful. It appears that one solution is to raise and multiply mopane larvae from pupae via moths and eggs, before releasing them onto nearby mopane trees quite early in the larval life cycle. The pupae stage of the mopane life cycle can be extended to control the time that large mopane worms can be harvested. However, diseases are easily transmitted in breeding and complete populations can be lost. Currently this is addressed by raising smaller populations in distributed facilities located in a number of households.

At present there is some information available to farmers, but those involved say further research is required to improve the systems. The uptake of what is available is limited because of a lack of environmental awareness and resistance to investing in facilities when worms can simply be collected in the wild.

Photo credit: JackyR on Creative Commons GNU Free Documentation License

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