Cochineal farming in Peru
On our latest visit to Peru we travelled to the Majes Valley, an hour or two drive from Arequipa city. On the way we had the chance to have a close look at some cochineal farming and learn about how they do it.If you don’t know already, cochineal is a dye that comes from a type of insect. It is not actually a beetle as many people think, it is a type of plant sucking insect. The dye is made from the adult females which are 5 mm (0.2 in) long.
It takes 155,000 dried female Cochineal beetles to make 1 kilo of Cochineal dye. In food you will see it listed as Carmine or E120.
It is used in many foods as a ‘natural’ food colouring and is also used in traditional textiles for dying fabric. Even the famous British army ‘Redcoats’ were coloured with cochineal, as were the robes of Cardinals after Pope Paul II took a liking to it in 1464!
Cochineal may have been used for more than 1500 years in Peru where it has always been prized for its strong red colour. It was traded by the Huari (a civilisation before the Incas) as far away as Mexico with the Toltec and Aztec civilisations where it was considered as valuable as gold.
Peru still produces 85-90% of the world’s cochineal although people are attempting to farm it in similar climates in Spain and Australia.
Cochineal is still very valuable and so some people concentrate on just farming the beetles and the cacti that they live on. So if you are travelling through Peru and you see a field full of Cacti you are most likely looking at Cochineal farming.
Cochineal farming in Peru - Infestation on a cactus
The insects are introduced to the cactus that they will feed on in small envelopes that are clipped to the catcus. This also offers the insects some shade from the strong desert sun, the cold desert night and somewhere to hide. Gradually the insects get larger and start to infest the cactus and breed – even though the female attaches herself permanently in one place.
In the photo above you can see the white waxy fuzz that they produce to protect themselves from other parasites and the sun. You can see someone has squashed a beetle and left a strong red dot on the left.
As they gradually cover the cactus the farmers will cover them to shade them from the sun so they can keep on breeding and feeding.
Eventually they can even kill the cactus. When the cacti are covered in fat female insects, about 90 days later, they are cut down and the insects are scraped off. They are killed by various methods, including putting them in hot water, steaming them, baking in a special oven or just leaving them out in the sun.
In the same areas you will find shops of traders who buy Cochineal – ‘fresh or dry’. The insects have to be dried out in the sun so they do not decompose, and then they are ready for export.
