Beekeping in kenya
Bee keeping is a valuable enterprise within the Kenyan Agricultural sector, contributing about 4.3 billion Ksh. Beekeeping industry provides income to 90,340 farmers. An average of 900 persons are employed formally in 104 equipment manufacturing units. National dependency ratio is 1:6. An estimated number of persons benefitting directly from beekeeping is 547,440.
Beekeeping in Kenya predominated in arid and semi- arid regions of the country, rather than in Kenya’s more productive rural areas. Traditionally, those living in areas with high rainfall, fertile soils, and cooler climates focused on the production of food and cash crops, while the people in the more arid and infertile areas either opted for a nomadic pastoral lifestyle, creating migratory routes for cattle, or established a more sedentary lifestyle based on cultivating drought-resistant food crops, supplemented by rudimentary beekeeping. ASALs contribute 80% of honey production. Non-ASAL areas also practice beekeeping. There is a greater potential to produce honey and other hive products in the ASALs which make up about 80% of Kenya’s land area. ASALs have plentiful flora that is important for bee feeding. Only about 20% of annual honey production potential (25,000 metric tons) is achieved in Kenya, leaving the full potential of 100,000 metric tons unrealized. Kenya is the third important producer of honey in Africa after Ethiopia and Tanzania. The apiculture policy has broadly promoted a modern bee keeping industry to provide additional income for rural households. Modern bee keeping is an important enterprise in the livestock sub-sector. The traditional log hives contribute 80% of the honey produced while modern hives produce the rest.
Despite the potential of honey production and benefits of apicultural activity, very little income accrues from the activity. Most of the income is based on domestic sales with only 2% of the production exported overseas. Problems in beekeeping relate to: poorly developed domestic and international marketing system due to problems of quality production and inadequate marketing organizations; low colonies and bee occupation of colonies due to environmental/climate change; inadequate training of extension staff and farmers and thus lack of farmers’ skills in managing bees and hive products; lack of appropriate research on bee keeping technologies, equipment, honey bee and product utilization; lack of pesticide residue monitoring and management in honey; and lack of access to and/or adoption of appropriate bee equipment.
Thus, packers or producers don’t want to get involved in export because of the logistics involved. They prefer to sell locally or in the region because there is a readily available market.
So with a ready and easily accessible local market that offers good prices, Kenyan honey producers are unwilling to undergo the bureaucratic rigours of export, which involve higher transport costs and quality testing.There are no commercial producers of honey; they are all smallholder traditional bee keepers, which exacerbates the ability to meet the large demands of markets like the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Between all the challenges that the apiculture sector in East Africa is facing, the greatest threat to the sector is the recent entry of a deadly pest that is affecting the African bee. While it is unclear whether it is the same parasite which hit honey producers in America, Asia and Europe mid last year and cut their volumes by two thirds.
This should be coupled with planting a diversity of plants and indigenous trees in beekeeping areas, preventing deforestation and adopting farming practices that avoid the use of pesticides during the flowering period.
Honey is five times more expensive than oil and its demand is increasing not only in Africa itself but all over the world. The demand for honey in Kenya has been rising with each passing year. Honey is a very special item to Muslims since it is mentioned in the Quran. For this reason, in the Arab market, a jar of honey can fetch almost double this amount.
In the latest years, the demand for honey in Kenya became so high, that the country is unable to satisfy itself and is forced to import from neighbouring Tanzania.
Helenia Molinaro
Irene De Angelis
