All about Butterfly Farming: Why Butterfly Farming?

As we enter the twenty-first century the symptoms of contaminated and decaying environments the world over are increasingly prevalent. Such issues as deforestation, fouled air and water, species extinction, soil degradation is impacting our social and political agendas with greater urgency every year. In our incessant quest for food, shelter and the raw materials necessary to maintain our modern economies and lifestyles, our short-term interests have been supported at the expense of the long-term viability of or planet. One of the challenges of our day is to discover and develop industries, economies and even living patterns that minimize the effects of our presence on Earth.

In his book, Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher advances many proposals for meeting these challenges. Among these, he recommends that business enterprises wholly incorporate the use of appropriate technologies. For Schumacher, an appropriate technology is one that is readily understood by the people who are using it, is environmentally non-destructive, incorporates locally available raw materials, is economically and environmentally sustainable, and is not dehumanizing or degrading to the people who use it.

Butterfly farming contributes to other favorable factors. These would include the generation of rural employment, thereby supporting the rural economy and stemming rural to urban migratory patterns. If placed near a forest, such as a national park, the local human population would not only benefit economically from the park’s existence, but would have a stake in the park’s integrity and survival. Butterflies certainly represent a non-traditional product for export, thereby having a favorable affect on the dependence of many countries on the capricious market for a few staple commodities such as coffee, sugar or bananas. Butterflies generate foreign exchange income for hard currency starved economies. Also in favor of butterfly farming is that it is aesthetically beautiful. Not only is the operation non-obtrusive, but it can contribute intellectual stimulation and aesthetic value to the communities its undertaken. In so far as the final product is concerned, one may argue that a country has few finer representatives abroad than its butterflies.

Aside from a motor cycle and perhaps an electric pump for irrigation, there are virtually no expensive or technologically sophisticated capital requirements. The technological simplicity of butterfly farming, therefore, minimizes the strain on a dollar starved economy to establish a butterfly breeding program. This fact furthermore eliminates the dependence of the butterfly farmer on the availability of scarce imported materials and the technical expertise to maintain sophisticated equipment.

Though many people are unfamiliar with the life cycle of a butterfly, the concept can be readily understood with a modicum of explanation. The metamorphosis of a larva into a pupa and hence into an adult butterfly need be demonstrated but once for most people to grasp.

Having described some of the virtues of commercial butterfly farming, it is necessary to stress that butterflies are not a basic foodstuff that enjoy an insatiable market. Although an activity such as butterfly farming is generally thought to be ideal for development purposes --and touted as such in the publications of many environmental organizations-- it cannot be thought of as a cure-all for butterfly-rich, cash-poor communities. With the exception perhaps of some regions of Africa, the supply of captive bred butterflies in recent years has come to far exceed the markets ability to absorb them. Consequently, and inevitably, prices are declining.