Calls to push honey
Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), James Paul, thinks concerted efforts should be made to develop a honey industry in Barbados, even creating speciality honey for local and overseas markets.
During an interview with The Barbados Advocate, he agreed with recent sentiments expressed by Vice President of the Barbados Apiculture Association, Damien Hinds, that this country is poised to develop a thriving honey industry and as such he wants to see investments made in this area. His comments came as he noted that world-wide, countries like the United States and Canada are engaging in honey production that is worth millions of dollars, and he is of the firm belief that rather than importing thousands of kilograms of honey annually as we currently do, Barbados can become a producer, to not only meet our local needs, but perhaps even export to some of the countries within the Caribbean region.
“We import honey right now and if we are trying to look at products that we can easily produce, honey is certainly one of those. The fact is if we can do it on a large enough scale, we can reduce our import bill and by extension save foreign exchange, as right now we spend almost half a million US dollars bringing honey into this country,” Paul stated.
He added, “That is one gap we can actually plug if we use the local production of honey to reduce the need to import honey from overseas.”
As such, he said steps would have to be taken to beef up the bee population on the island, if we are to move in the direction of the commercial production of honey. Noting also how essential bees are to the pollination of plants, he said increasing our bee population would facilitate better production of crops generally, and help boost the local agricultural sector.
“Without bees a lot of the fruits we currently enjoy we would not be able to enjoy, they are essential for crop pollination and in their absence a lot of the plants, even the sugar cane would suffer, so normal agriculture demands pollination,” the BAS head stated.
He continued, “The other thing is too, depending on where that honey originates it has a flavour attached to it and that depends on the type of plants that the bees pollinate. The thing about honey is it tends to take on the taste profile of the plant which the bees pollinated, so whether it is an ackee or tamarind tree for instance, it makes a difference in the taste.”
That reality, he said is where he would like to see Barbados capitalising on the most, as it provides the opportunity to create exclusive forms of honey. He indicated that by doing such, it would give honey produced here more marketability in the external markets.
“The fact is we can set premium prices for honey that we can say has a different and unique taste profile. So all in all I think it is an attractive industry to pursue and we already have the skills here to engage in bee rearing on a consistent basis, the need now is to get more persons on board to take it to the next level,” he suggested.
Paul made the point while noting that beekeeping is not difficult and can be used by persons to either supplement their income or as their main source of employment. (JRT)