Young bee farmers form cooperative to boost honey business
LIRA, April 9, 2024 – In a bid to boost production of honey for the international market and generate more household incomes, the youth in the Lango and Acholi sub-regions have formed a cooperative society.
With support from Barkman Best Bees Company in Lira City, the youth according to their coordinator, Ferdinand Acai have kicked off registration of its members at a fee of Shs 30,000 while they prepare to undergo training on beekeeping.
“We have so many partners that have shown willingness to train us on beekeeping, value addition, honey market and quality control for exports,” Acai said during the handover of 580 beehives to a group at Wiodyek Primary School in Lira district.
He called upon fellow youth to join the cooperatives so that they have a strong voice to negotiate and power to lobby to different partners to support the course.
He added that their target is to recruit about 2,000 members both in Lango and Acholi then start engaging in mass honey production.
“We need to be together and grow together as a family,” Acai said.
The Chief Executive Officer of Barkman, Robert Okodia, one of the prominent honey exporters, said the company is partnering with MasterCard Foundation and Hot Loave to increase honey production in Northern Uganda.
He said with the partnership, they will train 700 youth in the region and offer each of them 10 beehives.
He said they have already started and they are targeting the new cooperative in the near future to conduct training for farmers of beekeeping.
“We want the company to grow and our youth as well,” he added.
Senior Presidential Advisor in charge of Lango Sub-region, Sam Engola Engola who handed over the beehives called upon the youth to embrace beekeeping as the best option to drive poverty out of the their households.
“Beekeeping is more than producing maize every three months. This one you harvest three times in a year and earn Shs 1.5 million,” he said.
He added that the government has introduced so many programmes such as Parish Development Model [PDM], Youth Livelihood Programme [YLP], and Uganda Women`s Entrepreneurship Programme [UWEP] among others.
https://thecooperator.news/gulu-bee-farmers-advised-to-embrace-climate-smart-agriculture/
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