Beekeeping development for poor farmers

by A Gnägi

In many situations “beekeeping development” means the introduction of new technology, usually new types of hives. Often people are not trying to discover the real problems of local beekeepers. Project activities should always be aimed at the identified needs of local (mostly poor, small-scale) beekeepers.

Poor farmers in risk-prone environments, trying to make a living from diverse activities (.many different crops, livestock, crafts and off-farm work) face so many constraints that they can hardly ever profit from recommended development packages. The situation is perhaps worst in sub-Saharan Africa where more than half of the population is being passed by (things are often better in places where irrigation is possible).

It is about 20 years since beekeeping became a generally recognised theme in development planning. The results of these two decades of beekeeping development have been mixed. Overgeneralising a little, one could say that the best results were achieved with relatively well off, educated beekeepers, European (imported) bees, and in temperate climates. Poor farmers with vicious or otherwise “strange” bees in the least developed tropical countries often gained nothing.

The fact that poor farmers are often passed by has been observed not only in beekeeping development, but in agricultural development in general. It has been realised that the usual “technology-transfer” model of development does not work with farmers who have little or no resources available to them. These farmers typically do not adopt the “solutions” suggested by experts. A lack of fit between the problems and proposed solutions, as the farmers themselves perceive them, has been identified as the major reason for non adoption. Therefore, a development strategy for resource-poor farmers should start with the farmers’ own perception of their problems, using the knowledge and technology they already possess.

One such strategy is Farming Systems Research and Development (FSR&D), in which the area and group of farmers to be reached are first defined. It is then necessary to discover what the main problems of these farmers are. Next, solutions to these problems are sought and communicated back to the farmers. If they think these solutions might work for them, they try them out on their farms. If the solutions work, they are passed on unbelievingly fast by the farmers themselves (one solution to Kenya in three problems with maize spread over all of years, without any extension effort).

Maybe this new strategy sounds like common sense, but for Africa at least it is more like a revolution than a reform. The revolutionary think is that “experts” go to farmers and try to learn from them.

The main point is not to find a new name for old practices, but to change ways of doing things: the resource-poor beekeeper has to be put in the centre of beekeeping development. It has to be the beekeeper who identifies problems, it has to be the beekeeper who chooses which technology should be tested, and it has to be their adoption or non-adoption that evaluates a development effort.