Hopping towards #ZeroHunger

On the road towards #ZeroHunger, the innocent foundation is committed to finding and funding organisations that start small but don’t stay small.  

It doesn’t start much smaller than the Madagascar Biodiversity Centre (MBC). They’re working to eliminate Malagasy farmers’ need to encroach on habitat when food is scarce by improving emergency food aid with a huge dose of protein and vitamins from an unexpectedly tiny source—the cricket. Crickets are a traditional food in Madagascar and, when they’re ground into a powder and added to a cracker or porridge, they’re a good source of protein and vitamins. They’ve been rearing crickets in their Valala Farm location for a while, and now they’re ready to watch their operation grow.  

That’s where the innocent foundation comes in. We’ve supported them to grow into to three new farms while shrinking the cost of the whole process. How? By experimenting with their largest variable cost: what the crickets eat.  

Now crickets eat all sorts. There are herbivorous, omnivorous, and even scavenging crickets in the wild. They don’t need a lot of water, and they don’t need a lot of space –making them a much more environmentally friendly source of protein than, say, beef—but cricket farmers know that you need to feed your crickets right so they grow up quickly, tasty, and nutritious. The crickets on Valala Farms have been eating chicken feed, which doesn’t sound fancy, but costs a lot.  

So the Madagascar Biodiversity Centre set out into the farming fields of Madagascar looking for a cheaper alternative. They let the crickets taste-test 66 varieties of locally abundant weeds and agro-byproducts to see which they preferred. Under strict study conditions, they found out that Tropical Morning Glory, a totally free weed, was the preferred meal, by volume. The crickets grew just as quickly and just as nutritious as ever.  

Now MBC can cut a big portion out of their costs while they grow more nutritious crickets. If they grow enough, big humanitarian organisations like UNICEF or USAID may start buying protein powder from them directly, supporting a Malagasy organisation instead of buying in emergency aid food from abroad—that would be huge news. And what’s more, MBC will publish their findings from this study and others with open access journals like Plos One so that others can copy their inexpensive methods right away—very big-hearted of them.  

From small beginnings, the Madagascar Biodiversity Centre has big ambitions, and we’re excited to watch them grow.