46 Middle East & Africa The EconomistNovember 16th 2019
(^2) Faso’s Soum province, the miners hire jiha-
dists to provide security, says the icg. Oth-
er armed groups such as ethnic militias are
also in on the bonanza and collect cash to
guard mines. International mining firms
may also be funding the jihadists by paying
ransoms for abducted employees or “pro-
tection” money to keep mining, according
to a study published by the oecd, a club of
mostly rich countries.
Informal mines also provide a recruit-
ment pool for extremists, since they are
full of fit young men who know how to use
explosives. Researchers say they have
heard about several instances of radical
preachers going to artisanal miners to re-
cruit fighters. They also provide a ready
source of explosives for bombs.
Just as panning for gold takes time and
patience, so too will be the process of ex-
tracting jihadist groups from the mining
boom. This should be done at both ends of
the supply chain. States could start by pro-
viding tax incentives to miners who agree
to sell through official channels, which
would reduce the amount that jihadists
and criminals earn from smuggling. For
the moment much of Burkina Faso’s artisa-
nal production is sneaked into Togo, which
barely taxes the shiny stuff. Togo does not
produce much gold domestically but it sent
more than 12 tonnes of gold to Dubai in
- Gold is also taken out of the Sahel
through major airports in hand luggage.
Another step would be for the region’s
police and army chiefs to prioritise guard-
ing mines and their environs. With securi-
ty could come services such as schools and
clinics as well as the governance needed to
formalise the industry and prise it away
from extremists.
France, which already has some 4,500
troops across the region, said earlier this
month that it would expand its mission by
deploying significant ground forces to Bur-
kina Faso for the first time. It is also trying
to form a new contingent of European
commandos to reinforce its fight against ji-
hadists. Neither move suggests that the
end is in sight. 7
BURKINA FASOGHANA BENINNIGERTOGOMALI
OuagadougouBoungou
gold mineSoumSources: ACLED; French Development AgencyArtisanal gold minesJihadist attacks
Jan 1st-Nov 13th 2019
150 kmA
t a marketin Goma, a city in the
east of the Democratic Republic of
Congo, an old woman pulls the wings off
live grasshoppers and tosses their wrig-
gling bodies into a bucket. She collected
the insects from the airport at 5am that
morning, and will go back the next day.
Grasshopper season has just begun.
Throughout November dozens of
grasshopper-hunters gather at Goma
airport most mornings. It is one of the
few buildings in the city with constant
electricity, and the lights that mark the
runway attract swarms of the bug. People
stuff them into plastic bottles to take to
market. Buyers season them with salt
and eat them with rice or cassava.
Selling insects is more lucrative than
selling fruit. A small pile of grasshoppers
fetches the equivalent of $0.60 (Congo’s
gdpper person is $562). Gathering them
costs nothing but time. Caterpillars are
more valuable still. Once they are boiled
and salted, a large handful will sell for
$1.20—the same price as ten bananas.
Households in Kinshasa, the country’s
sprawling capital, consume about 300
grams of caterpillars (about 80, if they are
averagely juicy) a week.
The Congolese have been eating bugs
for centuries. People say caterpillars, in
particular, are not just tasty but healthy.
“Our ancestors taught us to eat them to
protect us from illnesses,” says Leonie
Lukambala, a seller. She believes theycan even help people infected with hiv.
Caterpillars are packed with potassi-
um, calcium and magnesium. A hundred
grams of them will provide a person with
the required daily intake of each of these
minerals. They are richer in protein than
beef or fish. A handful is packed with
about 500 calories, more than are in a
fast-food cheeseburger. But that is a
boon, not a drawback, in a country that
suffers from one of the world’s highest
rates of malnutrition.
Others around the world should catch
up. Bug farming takes up less land, re-
quires less food and does less damage to
the environment than meat or fish farm-
ing. Crickets, for example, need 12 times
less food than cattle to produce the same
amount of protein. Bugs can even be fed
farm and kitchen waste, such as rotten
fruit and vegetables.
Hunting insects is easy, too. Anyone
can wander into the forest—or, indeed,
to the airport—and gather caterpillars,
ants and grasshoppers. But that can also
lead to bad outcomes. The wrong variety
of insect can poison consumers. Mrs
Lukambala says she knows which cater-
pillars to pick because her family has
gathered them for generations (the safe
kind have red heads and fall out of trees).
Your correspondent tried a sample: it
was brittle and had a smoky taste. Add
one more to the 2bn people worldwide
who chomp insects.Gourmet grubs
Creepy superfoodsGOMA
Eating bugs is popular in Congo, for good reasonPerfect with a glass of palm wine