Inefficiencies, low capacity cripple Uganda honey industry

An insightful article on Uganda Daily Monitor by Dorothy Nakaweesi on 9th February told the plight of the Uganda Honey beekeepers;

Here are a few excerpts,

Inefficiencies in honey supply chain, low capacity of producers to understand and negotiate markets, have continued to deny Uganda the opportunity to achieve its full potential in bringing income benefits to the poor.

Currently Uganda produces 3, 000 tonnes only but it has a capacity to produce over 200,000 tonnes if all issues are put together. 

“However often many of the beekeepers receiving handouts from donors were not properly trained to be able to manage their apiaries or even harvest honey on their own. The denoted equipment was also left unattended and eventually destroyed by fire, weather, and termites or vandalized,”

Local hives have proved to be profitable than frame hive beekeeping and overlooking this fact has the opposite effect to the development of apiculture sector in Uganda.

“Commercialisation therefore is about being efficient cost –effective and raising income to alleviate poverty to many and has nothing to do with hive types. Therefore it is necessary to focus training on honey harvesting and handling rather than trying to transform beekeepers from using the local hives to frame-hive beekeepers,” the report said.

For the full article, please visit The Daily Monitor 

The issues illustrated in the article was discussed previsouly in the entry Defining sustainable beekeeping.

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