Please find some responces to the discussion Questions from the community in Uganda.
“Bee products: providing nutrition and generating income - Honeybees, beekeeping and bee products in our daily lives”.
Discussion questions and Answers provided:
1. What are the dietary and nutritional benefits known in your community for bee products?
Answer 1:
The Nutritional and dietary benefits include;
- Honey is food, Liquid honey is used as sweetener in beverages(Tea/coffee or cocoa hot drink
- It is also used as ingredient for fruit jams or as flavorings agent in gums or marmalades
- Creamed honey is a recipe used in peanut butter and this used as spread on bread, cake or even for eating freshly boiled cassava and potatoes.
- Honey is also used as ingredient in bakery products and confectioneries
- Nutritional benefits that are associated to health include;
- Honey mix with propolis is herbal concoction for cough syrup; it also helps ease general body pain and muscle fatigue.
- The health benefits are general strength, mental efficiency and honey also improves food digestion and assimilation due to the enzyme properties it has.
- It is also remedy for cold/flu, mouth and throat infection and bronchial infections
- In wounds, sores, it is used as antibiotic and a steriler and improves healing.
- It contributes to reduction of heart diseases.
2. Is honey affordable and available in your community all year round?
Answer 2:
- Generally speaking honey and other bee products are available throughout the year. There are two seasons for honey harvest that follows the crop flowering calendar, however with the improved technologies farmers are adopting, (like use of improved hives and harvest skills), most farmers are able to harvest honey at any time of the season of the year for house hold consumption.
- There is also wild honey within the community that is harvested from natural forests and protected areas and this increases the availability of honey for the community.
- The price per kilogram ranges from (US Dollar 3-5; Equivalent UGX 10,000- 15,000). This is unaffordable to non-beekeepers. It therefore means households who enjoy the nutritional benefit of bee products are mainly the beekeepers and the middle class.
3. What are the prospects for beekeeping in the future? Beekeeping, poverty alleviation and food security: where are we headed?
Answer 3:
Beekeeping has emerged as a very successful agricultural practice that is contributing to food security and enterprise development within the local people in rural areas with self-driven interest especially among those of less incomes base.
This is attributed to the benefits; of high return on investment, less labour intensity, requirement of few inputs, less land and capitalizes on a ready supply of pollen which the communities have now realized and taken advantage of. In rural areas there is almost an unlimited source of pollen and bees aid greatly in the natural cross pollination of local crops.
The local authorities have also taken active lead to mobilize the communities in development of apiary sub sector of agriculture.
At the National level, The Ministry of Agriculture (MAIIF) in partnership with development agencies under the umbrella of The Uganda National Apiculture Development Organization TUNADO and ApiTrade have initiated a National Apiculture policy (NAP) a policy process for the developing and integrating the apiculture into national programmes.
Overall there is gradual but progressive trend of development in the beekeeping sector and this is increasingly contributing to poverty reduction and food security in the community.
4. With diseases, pests, habitat loss, colony collapse and climatic changes increasingly affecting apiculture around the world, what can we do to create sustainable conditions for agriculture and apiculture to coexist and to benefit from each other?
Answer 4:
The role of forests with focus on climate change has increased interest in ecosystem restoration as a means for adaptation. Climate change has become one of the key drivers pushing integrated approaches for natural resources management into practice. Beekeeping provides this leverage because of the direct and indirect links.
In my view priority is to do with policy; The Communities, Leaders, Development partners, Conservation institutions and governments have to work on policies and approaches that promote Climate smart agriculture and organic farming.
The biggest challenge in the beekeeping sector is the use of inorganic control of crop pests and diseases which have great negative bearing on bee population and survival. The sustainable approach would be to support the communities to adopt integrated organic farming with limited use of chemicals of any form.
The“natural infrastructure” (Forests/wetlands) degradation for farming systems has also taken a toll on the habitat loss leading to collapse of colonies and overall bee population dwindling. The development partners that have resource envelopes for agricultural development should channel such resources to more sustainable approaches to promote agro forestry farming systems.
Ben Butele-ADRAMAH
PROGRAMME COORDINATOR
Ben Butele-Adramah