News around the World

ARGENTINA

Plant protection risks for bees

The Pellston Workshop on Potential Risks of Plant Protection Products to Pollinators took place in Florida, USA in January. Forty-five specialists from four continents - bee scientists, university researchers, directors of state agencies for pesticide regulation and representatives of private companies - addressed key issues on the effect of pesticides on honey bees. Dr Teodoro Stadler from the Environmental Toxicology Laboratory in Mendoza participated and will share workshop results and local research findings in the XIX Fair and Beekeeping Meeting from the Centre of the Country in Córdoba in May. The conference has been organised by Espacio Apicola magazine with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock & Food, Córdoba Province with endorsement from Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. More at www.apicultura.com.ar

Fernando L Esteban, Director, Espacio Apícola, Córdoba

KENYA

Tharaka Honeybee Products was registered as a limited company in 2009. Mrs Miriam Chabaari had the idea when working as a school teacher in Tharaka, a remote village 300 km north-east of Nairobi. Frustrated by her low monthly salary of KES1,322 (€12, US$16) Miriam started the business by buying ten 500g jars from a local honey refinery owned by the Methodist Church. She sold the honey to colleagues at school for a profit of KES110 (€1, US$1.3) per jar. Miriam enrolled for courses in business management and beekeeping at Baraka Agricultural College in Molo, Kenya. In 2005, her training completed, Miriam resigned from the school and founded Tharaka Honeybee Products. She continued buying honey from the church refinery for resale in supermarkets in Nakuru town. Demand soon overwhelmed supply and in 2006 Tharaka Honeybee Products started sourcing honey directly from farmers in Kenya, and from co-operatives in Tanzania, for marketing under their own Tharaka Pure Honey brand at the Agricultural Society of Kenya show-ground in Nakuru town. Sadly, unprecedented chaos broke out at the end of 2007 due to a disputed presidential election in Kenya and Tharaka Honeybee Products’ young refinery hurriedly closed down as the premises were taken over by internally displaced people.

Today the business is based to Nairobi and is trading five tonnes of honey each month. In January 2011 the Company imported an automated honey processing plant and has five regular employees and extra casual workers as needed. The greatest challenges have been consumers’ dislike of crystallised honey, misinformation from unscrupulous merchants selling adulterated honey-mixtures, lack of organised marketing by producer associations, and finance. The Company strives to directly improve the well-being of beekeepers in remote rural areas of eastern Africa and aspires to be a showcase for women owned and managed beekeeping enterprises in the region.

Miriam Chaabari

PHOTOS © BEES FOR DEVELOPMENT

Tharaka honey

ApiTrade Africa representatives at the 2011 AGM (see page 10). From left: Mr Haile Giorgis Demissie, President, Ethiopian Apiculture Board; Ms Meskerem Shiferaw, Adviser, SNV Ethiopia; Ms Gladness Nkamba, Assistant Director, Ministry of Natural Resources & Tourism, Tanzania; Mr Mulufird Ashagrie, Business Development Adviser, Farm Africa–SOS-Sahel, Ethiopia; Mr Harun N Baiya, Board Chairman, ApiTrade Africa/CEO, SITE Enterprise Promotion, Kenya; Ms Mwanahmisi Mapolu, Beekeeping Officer, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Tanzania; Mr Ayalew Kassaye, President, Ethiopian Beekeepers Association; Mr Bosco Okello, CEO, ApiTrade Africa, Uganda; Ms Alice N Kangave, Principal Entomologist, Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industries and Fisheries, Uganda; Mr Mushumba Desire, Head of Beekeeping, Association for Integrated Development of Rwanda; Ms Doreen Tumushabe, Director, Agritrust (Uganda) Ltd.

PHOTOS © APITRADE AFRICA

Miriam Chaabari recently received training from Bf D under the ProInvest EAF6199 Project supporting apiculture intermediary organisations in East Africa.

Miriam Chaabari, Proprietor and Manager, Tharaka Honeybee Products, Nairobi