Grasshoppers (Ensenene) which are bush crickets migrate and appear just twice a year, after the rainy seasons in November and May annually. The swarms are around for only a few days and it is a time of business and joy to the lovers of the special delicacy. In most places of Uganda, majority of the population uses the easiest trapping method of visiting banana or maize plantations,bushes and shaking trees to catch grasshoppers.
And for real business and money, catchers lay elaborate traps involving iron sheets, drums, transformers and a special fluorescent light bulb which produces a stronger than usual light to attract and disorientate the insects during night hours. However, grasshopper businessmen and women in Fort-portal tourism city had started counting loses after days of trapping without any fortune in the previous weeks until on Wednesday when they started appearing.
Our reporter has visited some of the major selling points for grasshoppers at Mpanga Market and Fuelex petrol station Kisenyi where many people had gone Thursday morning to buy grasshoppers in Fort-portal.
Vinnie Mpumwire who was found with sacks of grasshoppers, told us that they were starting to lose hope after several days of waiting in vain. A cup of grasshoppers is at 1500 while a sack at 85,000 Uh shillings only.
Musinguzi Adolf of Bukwali ward has been in the grasshopper business for nine years but says seasons for grasshoppers are changing every year over unknown reasons.
In 2017, a section of scientists from UN’s Food and Agriculture Program tagged the delay of grasshoppers a delicacy for many on the effects of the changing climate, environmental degradation of their breeding areas worldwide.
According to scientists, grasshoppers breed mainly in swampy areas which have been widely encroached on and this will in the near future affect several people who depend on harvesting grasshoppers for a living.
