Where have all the grasshoppers gone?: Uganda’s insect traders struggle to find protein-rich bugs

Professional trappers find it increasingly hard to fill their sacks for market as the country’s forests, grassland and swamps where the insects breed are lost

As night falls on Masaka’s industrial zone, Karim Damba’s work begins. He hauls large corrugated steel sheets into place and attaches them to empty oil drums lined with black polythene bags, propped up by long pieces of wood. At 8pm, he flicks on the fluorescent lights and waits for the grasshoppers to arrive.

“I have been doing this since 25 October,” says Damba, adjusting his skullcap. Damba is a grasshopper trapper in central Uganda. Between October and December his nights are spent waiting for the insects to hit the metal sheets and fall into the drums. The protein-rich bugs are wrapped and transported to market.