 forward to have this dialogue with the two of you on the topic of edible insects and the two cookbooks that you have been instrumental in preparing as part of Agriculture for Food Security 2030, AgriForce 2030 program. My name is Anneli Sundin, I work with communication and engagement in the program. These cookbooks are now available on our website aslu.se slash AgriForce and you can find them via the links below this video. As more and more people are becoming aware of today, insects can be very nutritious and can be a good replacement of animal protein such as beef and pork. This has major benefits for our climate if we are to reduce our meat intake. It can also have potential to combat food insecurity for example when crops fail in a year with a lot of drought. Edible insects can become essential for alleviating hunger. Edible insects are common in many parts of Africa however today in many urban areas they are losing in popularity. You both set out on the quest of making the edible insect sector flourish in both Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as beyond these two countries and as part of that quest you have been together with brilliant chefs and researchers developing two cookbooks on edible insects. So before I start with my first question for you, could you please quickly introduce yourself. If we start with Lindley. My name is Lindley Chimona Carlton and I am an associate professor in rural development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. I am particularly interested in issues of food security and poverty alleviation and not least when it comes to gender equality within these areas. Thank you Lindley. Excellent and then Robert in Zimbabwe. My name is Robert Musundire. I'm an associate professor of entomology at Chinois University of Technology. I'm interested in working on the utilization of edible insects as food and feed. I've been working in the Agrofossil program since 2016 mainly to promote handling safety and marketing in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thank you. Thank you very much. So okay my first questions is a little bit around the why. So why is it that you came to this point to write these two cookbooks and of course you can tell us a little bit more about them but what do you think that these cookbooks can contribute with especially in terms of food insecurity and I would like to start with Lindley if you think you can. So when you know the issue of food security and the gender 2030 began to gain momentum much of the discussions around animal source foods in relation to nutrition in relation to climate change but also in relation to stewardship started to take form. I found that there was one voice that was really missing and that was the voice of women and in this collaborative project together with Robert you know what I found missing as a link was working with scientists from African institutions within the area of entomology or entomophagy and really trying to work together from Esselu's viewpoint of looking at issues around global development but also sustainability thinking how could we look into these issues together at the same time as bring these forgotten voices of women to the forefront and so with Robert the interest was Robert can you assist and work more on these issues of understanding insects and in Zimbabwe but also can we gather and benefit from the knowledge that you have from a scientific evidence-based viewpoint with respect to insects to working in the Democratic Republic of Congo where we are working with women that would like to develop enterprises around insects but maybe don't really have this understanding of the science involved in terms of processing but also preparation and thereby consumption and making sure that their markets so I went on to engage more with the women in the Democratic Republic of Congo and they were these fantastic women from Africa and these were a group of 30 women to begin with and many of them were actually not they were literate but maybe not as you know not at the at that level of how can we now look into this from a scientific basis but they had so much knowledge in terms of what the insects were and how these particular insects featured in in various you know recipes and dishes at the same time because we were in Kinshasa they were very cognizant of the fact that the limitation in terms of consumption of insects was the price factor they were getting increasingly expensive and rare and so how could we then not lose this wonderful knowledge basis that they had both in terms of experiential lessons on which ones are edible which insects are edible how do you collect them how do you prepare them how do you preserve them and when are they best consumed and how do you balance consumption in relation to availability and price factors so for me meeting Marianne and her colleagues and together with Beatrice my colleague from Sweden going through this participatory exploratory phases of so which insects exist here can we do a market survey and I'm telling you these women went out and collected and brought back with them for a discussion so many different types of insects that they could then tell the story of how it reminded them either of where they came from in the democratic republic of Congo when they consumed them in terms of their childhood but also as adults or as mothers and how they were dreaming of doing more than just preparing for themselves but preparing for a bigger audience to serve the culture and the knowledge which they had so this for me was the driving force how do I get the knowledge of African women their experiences their expertise documented because even to many of the cookbooks around insects as you have said in the beginning the interest from the Europeans and you know the other rich countries is interesting yes but how about documenting and sharing the expertise that has existed that these women have for a long time yeah I'll let Robert in here please what's your comments and you know what led you to to create these cookbooks Robert yeah well in the beginning we made observations in the traditional consumption practices of edible insects mainly in Zimbabwe we've been doing this work for quite some time since 2004 and when we when I met Linnley in 2016 that was the turning point now because she has been interacting with women from the democratic republic of Congo now from our point we had observed that insects were just being cooked in the traditional manner with minimal value addition and processing and in some instances insects such as termites if you cook them the way they are there were issues to do with digestion some of them are not properly taken through the system so Linnley brought these exciting ideas about processing and and adding value that's when we started to have some thinking around what products we could make so through that interaction we then realized that if we come up with innovation in the products it could even encourage new consumers to come in and then we could increase the number of people that are consuming insects as food oh thank you Robert this both of your stories here gave really a full picture of why you landed with these cookbooks but can you tell me a little bit about about the actual process of writing these recipes together and how were different chefs involved how were the researchers involved in in the actual recipes and the photos that you've taken etc maybe Robert you could start here any comments on that all right based on the documentation of the traditional practices I had a manuscript regarding the traditional preparation and consumption practices and they're based on some work that has been done had been done in Congo by Linnley I approached a group of chefs at you know University of Technology in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism then I flight this idea that we need innovative products based on these practices so that's how it started I together with Linnley again we allowed them to innovate around those products and the result was so fantastic very exciting I can't wait to actually try and cook some here at home I just need to get hold of the insects Linnley do you have any any comments yeah several you know they the process in Zimbabwe was much more academic and more exact science I would say and you will see the difference when you look at the two books you you pick up the cookbook from Zimbabwe it is very precise with measurements portion sizes and you know grams and and and those things whereas the process with the women as I told you these were a group of women coming from many different walks of socioeconomic class and so the whole thing was very organic so firstly it was how do you explain the idea of documenting their wealth of information into a cookbook so I was traveling from Dar es Salaam to Kinshasa and at the airport in Dar es Salaam I happened to come across the cookbook which was written by an African chef and he was trying to show the world the importance of African cuisine and what I liked is how there was lots of pictures storytelling and then making these typical African dishes into this cookbook so I bought that cookbook and brought it with me to the group of women together with my colleague Beatrice Kedembe and then I said to the women can you look at this cookbook and if it's it's the dishes were actually from my first country Malawi and I said do you think we could do something similar with insects but from the DRC Congo and I will leave this book with you and you look at this book and see if you could do something similar but but with insects so the book not even at the end of the day had passed around several hands and they're like yeah of course we can do this yeah I already know what I can do with my you know I can contribute with these dishes and I said excellent so we left them to work on the dishes that they would like to prepare and then using that cookbook as an inspiration we scientists came back to Sweden and I've forgotten how many months it took and I think I shared with you Robert if you remember I said Robert look at what the women have come up with they sent me a document which you know they had their recipes and then you know I said this is excellent and in the process they said you know we could actually open a restaurant in Kinshasa together as women and I said really yes we're going to ask the mayor of Kinshasa if he can give us you know some space in the city where we can have an insect restaurant you know and that restaurant is going to be called the Mikeset you know insect delicacies yeah like the book so that's actually the name of the restaurant in Kinshasa and then they they took it once they're further and they said but we also need endorsement because if we just do it and it's just us women and nobody knows about us they may people may not really be convinced so we're going to look for the top chef in Kinshasa and ask him to you know put some recipes insect recipes in the cookbook and so that's the gentleman that you see in the cookbook who is one of the top chefs in Kinshasa that made those insect recipes so the thing just organically grew and the women you know took it up themselves and made it what it is and Robert was always in the background because I was like Robert I just need to check are these insects edible insects or could they be causing some allergies and there Robert was really good they even sent you some samples didn't we? Yes excellent what a story I really like this story and it feels at some point maybe you should send one of the cookbooks to this chef that wrote that book about the Malawian recipes yes so thank you yeah no it is harder there yeah no his name is Justin Kamanga and I yeah no the book is really picturesque and very easy to follow Nice Robert this makes me think do you want to say anything about any of the there were several spin-off effects in Zimbabwe from the project to do with the cookbook as well maybe is there something that you would like to tell us that's a spin-off effect Yeah under under the ad for say 2019 the one that we have been working in 2019 one of the objectives was to promote improved households insect consumptions as part of their diet so we realized yes there are some traditional insect consumers but they were those that were that were willing to consume insects but in the form that they were so again based on experiences from the first phase that Linley was working on we then deliberately decided to actually innovate in terms of improving processing and adding value to these insects this was a spin-off from the project from the agri-fossae 23rd project because from the marketing the handling part the story had to go all the way to the table where these products then had to appear well and test well to the consumers so that's a direct spin-off from the agri-fossae 23rd project Thank you so much both of you for taking your time and I can't wait to post this video and share it with the world as well as these two beautiful cookbooks thank you very much I think we'll conclude here thank you and watch this space Robert and I are not going away this is just a journey and then watch this space thank you can't wait