Tanzania: Govt Distributes 5,000 Modern Beehives to Beekeepers

By Daily News Reporter in Dodoma

THE Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism will distribute 5,000 modern beehives to beekeepers in potential areas for honey production in the country.

Director of Beekeeping and Forest Department, Dr Ezekiel Mwakalukwa, noted during a recent

beekeeping stakeholders' symposium that modern beehives would facilitate quality honey production.

"Modern beehives will also help boost quality honey production in the country and penetrate into the international market," said the director of Beekeeping and Forest Department.

The symposium, which brought together a number of beekeeping stakeholders, was hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism to discuss challenges facing beekeeping.

According to Dr Mwakalukwa, the country has the beekeeping potential due to a good number of forests.

"Tanzania is endowed with 48.1 million hectares of forest reserves, which is equivalent to 54.4 per cent of all the country's land," noted the senior officer in the ministry.

He said the ministry had set up 11 bee reserves in various parts of the country and local government authorities had set up 14 bee reserves in villages.

"We came up with the idea to set up bee reserves after an increase in the rate of deforestation in some parts of the country due to human activities," he said.

Dr Mwakalukwa explained that bee reserves served as means of protecting forests because beekeepers kept an eye on natural resources.

He said the government was finalising modalities for developing a strategy that would lead to the implementation of the National Forest Policy after national policy review.

"The updated national policy will help the government focus on new development initiatives," he said adding, "We decided to review our forest policy due to current changes."

Dr Mwakalukwa explained that the new national policy would also provide the country with a workable framework to support honey processing plants and would promote the establishment of honey processing plants in the country.

He noted further that the government was developing beekeeping guidelines to enable beekeepers to improve honey production and the guidelines were crucial for facilitating the production of quality honey.

Mid-last year, the government received the final draft of the National Forest Policy from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations. FAO committed 280/- to the government to facilitate the review of the National Forest Policy.