Industry fragmentation and a lack of funding could ruin the beekeeping industry. T his is according to Dr Beatrice Conradie from the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town, who was speaking at the recent South African Bee Industry Organisation (SABIO) annual conference in Heidelberg.
“The bee industry is highly fragmented and little is known about its size and its financial impact,” she said. “industry also suffers from a lack of funding to improve itself and initiate new ventures.” Peter Dall, who initiated the National Agricultural Marketing Council Section 7 Committee to identify challenges in the beekeeping industry, added that the industry would only be able to achieve the goals the committee has set out if it’s unified and has a statutory levy.
The committee’s goals were formulated to enhance the sustainability of the bee industry and are based on its needs for better legislation, the enforcement of legislation, research and market development, training and transformation, as well as more forage. D all emphasised that a statutory levy would only be approved if government was convinced that all the stakeholders in the industry support it. The industry must also be able to quantify and qualify production.
The Centre for Social Science Research at the of Cape Town recently conducted a survey of beekeeping in Africa to quantify and qualify the industry. It revealed that the industry is dominated by small-scale farmers who are beekeepers as a hobby. industry therefore has to decide the form that levies should take – a registration fee or a tax on hives, production, or apiary sites, or perhaps a combination of these. M ost farmers at the SABIO conference were in favour of a registration fee, in combination with a levy on the amount of honey produced.
However this idea needs to be approved by the whole industry before it will be presented to government for consideration. r Conradie also pointed out that the success of a lobby group is dependent on several things – the number of people it represents and their geographical spread, its effectiveness in addressing the needs of its members, its political influence and the depth of its pockets.– Glenneis Erasmus
Chemicals threaten bees worldwide
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSOCIATION the Sierra Club has accused the Department of Agriculture of caving in to corporates, despite massive bee deaths. Due to mounting evidence that new seed chemical coatings are deadly to bees, and with Germany calling for their immediate suspension, the Sierra Club reaffirmed its call for a moratorium on specific chemical treatments to protect bees and crops until more studies can be done.
It cited Germany’s Federal Agricultural Research Institute as saying, “It can unequivocally be concluded that poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from corn seeds.” The neonicotinoid chemicals, including clothianidin, are being used in a new way – as seed coatings. “Part of the equation in the is genetically engineered corn, as more corn seeds are being gene-spliced with a completely different species – a bacterium,” said Walter Haefeker of the German Beekeepers Association board of directors. “Bayer and Monsanto recently entered into agreements to manufacture neonicotinic-coated, genetically engineered corn. It’s likely this will worsen the bee die-off problem.” – Alan Harman
