By Austin Ofori Addo:
The Africa Union (AU) has organized a forum aimed at educating bee farmers on the effects of chemicals on their bee keeping activities. The application of the chemicals which is taking adverse effects on the activities of bee farmers has been a cause of concern for them since the chemical applications are affecting bee population negatively in Ghana.
As part of the efforts therefore to get the message down to the crop farmers who are the main ‘culprits’ as far as chemical application is concerned, bee keepers who were present at the forum are in turn expected to educate crop farmers about how the use of chemicals for farming is affecting their work.
The forum which took place in the North African country of Egypt drew a large number of African representatives. This included Mr. Patrick Addo Newman, CEO of Honey Tree Bee Farms as well as Mr. Kwamena Arkorful, president of the Bee keepers Association of Ghana and Director of Agriculture, Animal Production Directorate (APD) of the Ministry of Food and Agric who represented Ghana.
In an interview with Rite news, Mr. Newman said bees play a vital role in the agric sector through their pollinating activities. According to him, honey which is a product from bees has also been identified as an important health need. He noted that its used as food while some companies are also using it for beer production.
Other uses of the bee, he iterated is the use of the wax for creams, shoe polish, crayon and dumas as well as real wax prints. He however conceded that honey is very expensive with the cheapest selling for no less than a hundred cedis per gallon.
‘One advantage of bee-keeping over crop farming is that the sector has not been affected despite the poor rainfall pattern which adversely affected a lot of crop farmers,’ Mr. Newmann added.
He therefore appealed to the youth to involve themselves in bee keeping because it’s very profitable and needs less attention.
Source: ritefmonline.org
