BERKEE PING
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DEVEE OPMENT
3
MAKE A BEE FODDER CALENDAR by
Nick Harvey, Jajarkot Permaculture Programme, Nepal.
JAJARKOT is a hill district in mid-west Nepal. The Jajarkot Permaculture
The abundance of bee fodder (or bee forage) plants throughout the year determines the growth of the bee colony and hence the productivity of beekeeping. Many forest-based and cultivated plants can provide bees with fodder. These plants may also provide other products, such as fodder for livestock, fuelwood, food, timber, tannins, dyes, medicines, fertilisers, pesticides and gums. At the beginning of any programme- be it beekeeping, tree planting, fruit growing, agroforestry or community forestry, it is necessary to find out which plant species are locally-valued for providing particular products and their seasonal availability. Our Programme has been helping beekeepers to create bee fodder calendars. They form a useful starting point when addressing the question of bee fodder availability during beekeeping and other training. The local beekeepers and other participants identify and record the quality and quantity of bee fodder throughout the year. From this information, strategies can be discussed for conserving and improving supplies of bee fodder and other plant products. in this article we present the bee fodder calendar created by members of Kalpat Village, Jajarkot District.
Programme works with farming communities there, helping them strengthen their capacity to solve problems, to teach and to work together. Many villages in Nepal face degradation of the productive capacity of their land. This has resulted in lower, less reliable crop yields. reduced biomass for grazing, poorer fuelwood supplies, and a reduction in the supply of forest products. There is therefore great pressure on the remaining range of subsistence strategies available to rural
people To succeed in combating land degradation. ‘velopment programmes need innovative uesign strategies. They must involve: a} active participation of the resource users; b} organisational frameworks that can be
sustained, c}
technologies that are cheap, economical of labour and give recognisable productivity increases
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Programmes must use local resources, work through local institutions and fully involve the resource users in identification, design, monitoring, evaluation and implementation of activities, The aim is to strengthen the capacity of the local population to conserve their own
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Our programme supports a range of interrelated land use and subsistence practices that form the farming system. This is reflected in the wide choice of training we offer: beekeeping: horticulture, soi! conservation:
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Non-timber forest products (all biological materials, other than timber which are extracted from natural ecosystems. farm lands and plantations for human use) are of key importance in the land-use and subsistence
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practices of jajarkot farming systems. By identifying the availability and local importance of plant species which provide be designed particular products, strategies can is one such fodder Bee to sustain their supply of great importance non-timber forest product of fajarkot. to the many beekeepers
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Nepali hill-farming systems are highly integrated. Programmes must emphasise the connections between different land use actices, and provide support to the existing range of subsistence activities.
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continued on page 10
