Guyana has the potential to become a giant in honey production, which has earning capacity rivalling many of the other economic activities in Guyana, and bees must be seen as income-earning friends and not pesky nuisances. This is according to Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud, speaking yesterday at a bee-keeping forum at the Ministry, in collaboration with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
The forum, part of the calendar of activities for Agriculture Month 2010, saw the participation of various bee-keeping associations and members of the bee-keeping fraternity.
The Minister said too that bee-keeping is a low-hanging fruit for hinterland communities, since these communities are away from populated areas. He said that in Guyana, there are about 300 bee-keepers with some 2,000 hives. He said that estimates say, given the layout of the country geographically, “we could have 17 million hives earning US$800 million per annum.”
“I see that there is great promise in the bee-keeping sector, but there has to be a collaborative approach,” he said, adding that there are some constraints in terms of people being trained in the field. He said too that the Ministry of Agriculture is also deficient in the area of bee management, since there is no in-house expert. But he said that for the first time in the life of the Guyana Livestock Development Authority, a honey production unit will be part of its scope.
He said that in a very urban setting, people tend to see bees as nuisances and threats to health and well-being, and that there are calls for them to be exterminated. Persaud said that while these are genuine concerns, it must be recognised the role that bees play in agriculture, in the process of pollination “and we need that to get the necessary productivity from our crops.”
And Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud said he is perturbed when he goes to the market and sees foreign produced honey for sale, recognising the untapped potential for the sub-sector here at home.
Speaking at the forum, Prime Minister Sam Hinds advised the persons present that they should see themselves not just as bee-keepers, but business persons. But he said that for the activity to be fully self-sustaining, the numbers of hives across the country must be increased.
The Prime Minister spoke of a project that he helped to coordinate from his Ministry where an expert in bee-keeping and honey production was assigned to bring the knowledge of the trade to persons in Kamarang, after he heard that there was some degree of economic lows there. This was about seven years ago.
The Prime Minister said although persons have established hives, the activity is not what it can potentially be, but he said time was needed to see the full progression.
He said that for there to be a better standard of living, Guyanese must get producing, so that there would be better prices offered for goods and services to cover their costs. He said bee-keeping and honey production is one of the areas of great potential in Guyana. He said bee-keepers must get to the point where they have 100 hives each and maybe at a later stage, they can come to a 1,000 hives each.