Maravi

(HERALD) Beekeeping can contribute to poverty alleviation

Beekeeping can contribute to poverty alleviation
By Shingai Jena

THE emphasis on minerals as the key to economic growth appears to be taking away the focus of planners and investors from opportunities that other natural resources in the country can contribute to poverty alleviation.

While an attempt is being made to improve livelihoods of rural communities through the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, its bias on wild life, particularly elephants, is also relegating the impact that other natural resources can make in poverty alleviation.

With the advent of agrarian reforms, emphasis has again been on land tillage and not exploitation of other natural resources.

Since independence, Zimbabwe has been striving to reduce poverty among the previously marginalised black majority so that it can live up to its former status of being the "land of milk and honey".

This has, however, proved to be a tall order as wealth disparities have continued to dog the nation despite the vast natural resources that the country has, which are the envy of many.

Many foreigners who have visited the country have fallen in love with Zimbabwe.

While it might be true that at one time the country was a land of milk and honey, today there is nothing to prove it, as the national herd has dwindled and the trees where bees made honey have either fallen to the axe or gone up in flames.

Folklore has it that African men used to woo women with honey which they collected from hills near the villages where they lived.

In those days, being able to collect honey was a sign of brevity and innovation as it required great skill since one risked getting a swollen face from bee stings.

Honey was known to have a unique way of winning hearts of women as it "sweetened" the tongue, whatever that meant.

Today, in addition to being a tongue sweetener, honey has the potential to change the lives of rural communities through practising modern methods of keeping bees, harvesting, processing and marketing.

The idea of beekeeping as a means of alleviating poverty was conceived as way back as 1992 when the country was implementing the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme when Zimbabwe was hit by drought.

In order to overcome effects of the devastating drought, some concerned individuals who included Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development Minister Olivia Muchena founded the Zimbabwe Farmers Development Trust with the view to identify low cost projects of alleviating poverty and agreed on beekeeping.

ZDFT executive director, Tichasiyana Mapondera, said beekeeping was agreed on because of its minimum funding requirements since it uses readily available natural resources such as land, trees and the bees.

At inception, the project targeted small-scale farmers as well as rural communities in and around the Hurungwe district of Mashonaland West province as a pilot project.

To date it has been launched in more than 25 districts in the country.

However, withdrawal of support by the W.K. Kellogg foundation which provided funding for producing modern beekeeping materials has hampered progress as plans were underway to spread the project to other parts of the country.

"We urgently need a US$100 000 cash injection to facilitate further training programmes and remuneration of staff who train and manufacture beekeeping equipment," said Mapondera.

The funding required is small compared to the profits that farmers generate per year from honey production.

With raw honey going for up to US$2 per kilogramme, a small-scale farmer with an average of 100 modern Kenyan top bar hives which produce at least 30 kilogrammes each of raw honey and are harvested four times a year, earns at least US$6 000 per quarter.

In Buhera, there are more than 300 communal farmers involved in beekeeping who, when harvests are good, produce up to 1, 2 tonnes per quarter, which translates into a gross total of income of US$1 million a year.

With such impressive figures, words such as destitute and unemployed would cease to exist in the Zimbabwean vocubulary.

Taking into consideration that workers in the country are earning on average US$150 per month, rural folk would not find any reason to envy their relatives in urban areas who toil the whole month to get paid.

Besides the economic benefits it would bring to individual farmers, beekeeping would also benefit the pharmaceutical industry as honey is a key raw material in the manufacture cough medicines while other companies use it to cosmetics including soap and hair products. While legendary boxer Muhammad Ali described himself as someone who "flew like a butterfly and stung like a bee," Zimbabwe can regain its status as the "land of milk and honey" through exploiting the insect that stings to operate income-generating projects and eliminate poverty. — New Ziana.

Labels: BEES, HONEY

posted by MrK @ 12:04 PM