BOA’s N7.5m intervention to help boost bee farming

…we don’t want to be political beekeepers – Farmers No fewer than 75 bee farmers in the FCT have accessed a total of N7.5 million loan from the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) to scale up production and boost capacity. A bee expert, Pastor Gideon Dagunduro, who chairs the farmers’ association (Grassroots Beekeepers Association of Nigeria) […]

…we don’t want to be political beekeepers – Farmers

No fewer than 75 bee farmers in the FCT have accessed a total of N7.5 million loan from the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) to scale up production and boost capacity.

A bee expert, Pastor Gideon Dagunduro, who chairs the farmers’ association (Grassroots Beekeepers Association of Nigeria) in the FCT, said: “it is a dream accomplished because this is the first time I think an association that is into bee-keeping is accessing loan from the Bank of Agriculture.”

He said the association has put mechanisms in place, especially for monitoring and evaluation, adding that “every month, we will go to each farmer’s farm and look at the progress and ensure that the money is used to construct hives.”

“We have contacted a member of ours, who constructs hives so that each farmer will construct at least three to four hives that they will put in their farms. We are going to monitor them when they put them on their farms. We are very sure the money will be used for the purpose meant,” he added.

Hajiya Asabe Gurama, Manager Garki BOA Area 2 branch, also said this was the first time that the bank was dealing with the bee farmers association although they had dealings with individual bee farmers before.

“We are going to start them with N100,000 each, and the moratorium is for three months. We have started disbursing the N7.5m.

“So, once the honey is ready they can sell it and start returning the money to the bank. If they can do it three or four times in a year, it means they can equally pay this amount in one year,” she said.”

A & Shine International is working with the farmers as an off-taker and technical support provider to them.

Bukola Adeshina, Managing Director of A & Shine International, while speaking with Daily Trust on Sunday in Abuja said they source locally to argument their shortfall.

“We have a lab, we source locally, and we test to ensure that it’s not adulterated because adulterated products are very high in the country at the moment. Even in our packaging, we engrave our name on the bottles to help check adulteration. We put stamp pad and seal all in an effort to curb adulteration,” she said.

The chairman, Nigerian Apiculture Platform, Ademola Adeshina, while expressing hope for a better bee industry, said they are working hard to ensure that the bee sector begins to take better shape in the country.

“Nigeria has abundant honey. Our problem is documentation. There is no proper documentation to actually show the amount of honey being produced in Nigeria.

“So, with all these processes in place, we will be able to document whatever quantity of honey Nigeria is producing and be able to send it for record purposes so that we can take our appropriate place.

“If we can do it properly, Nigeria will be famous among honey producing countries in Africa.

“China is the world’s honey producing nation and when you look at what China is producing annually, by the time we do documentation of what we collect within Nigeria from our traditional beekeepers, it will far exceed that. We have to begin to document. We don’t want to be political beekeepers, we want to move from that name to real beekeeping,” he said.