In 2016, Adamu and his friends established a company called Adamu, Getahun and Friends Honey Production and Processing Enterprise, in Hulet-Eju Enessie Woreda, East Gojjam Zone of Amhara State. Gojam is well known for its marvelous agro-climatic conditions and biodiversity preferred for the cultivation of wide-ranging honeybee flora and increasing huge number of honeybee colonies.
Adamu and his friends targeted at creating employment opportunities in honey value chains for out of school youth. They face several challenges and passed through ups and downs to reach to the level where they currently are. All the group members were unemployed and dependent on their family. They had no sufficient land and capital to start such income generating activities.
At the foundation, they were contested by problems in relation to access to land, shortage of credit, and lack of market linkage & technical trainings. Later on, the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) and Mastercard Foundation launched a project called YESH (Young Entrepreneurs in Silk and Honey), which has brought hope and confidence to work on bee-keeping and be productive in their home town.
Well ahead, they created partnerships with local administrative authorities and the YESH project, which later contributed to demonstrate improved beekeeping as one major gainful employment opportunities for them. In fact, the project has directly supported 10,000 unemployed youth in the apiculture value chain in three zones of the Amhara Region, namely the Awi, East Gojjam and West Gojjam Zones.
In cooperation with these stakeholders, the youths took trainings which opened their eyes to start own employment. Now, the challenge is to expand and sustain the bee-keeping business as well as maximize the sources of revenues. Increasing the size of bee colonies and strengthening the side business will enable the youth to get enough income in the future.
In June 2016, they were approached by icipe/YESH project to organize in groups and start income generating activities in honey production. The selection of youths was conducted in collaboration with the Woreda Livestock Development Office and Kebele Administration Office. After recruitment, the administration identified suitable land (as per icipe’s criteria) and handed over 2.5 hectares of land to the youths.
Issued with a business license for honey production and processing from East Gojjam Zone Trade office, the youths get started with the support of YESH technical assistant, particularly in provision of entrepreneurial skills development and bee-keeping technical trainings.
According to Adamu, the trainings were crucial in motivating the youth to start own business and get prepared with the required bee-keeping skills. Before taking the training, most of them had no skills in beekeeping. But, after the trainings, all of them could acquire basic and progressive bee-keeping skills such as handling swarming bees, producing wax, honey harvesting, and colony splitting activities.
As to him, the youths constructed apiary site and bought bee colony from the nearby farmers by spending about 12,500 Birr. They transferred the colonies to modern beehives given by YESH Project. Nevertheless, the youths were not able to generate income as quickly as they expected. Because of its seasonal behavior, they could harvest only twice a year, in November and May.
At that time, they have already missed the flowering season of the main season harvest (November). Therefore, they have to wait for the next honey season. Instead of sitting idle until next honey production season, they have to be engaged in side business to generate income and support members of the enterprise. What they can do easily is wax production. Though finance was the major shortage to start any business, members of the enterprise agreed to raise some initial fund from the community.
In October 2016, members of the group prepared coffee ceremony and invited their family to visit the apiary site together with officials from Woreda and Kebele. This event played important role to convince their family to give them some money for starting side businesses. Each of their family members contributed 15,000 Birr, making total sum of 150,000 Birr. With this amount, they constructed a workshop on the given land and buy crude wax from the surrounding farmers and started fattening sheep.
By collecting and processing crude wax, the youths could able to generate income worth of 73,500 Birr. They collect crude wax from local breweries which is disposed as wastes as far areas as Bure and supply processed wax to other YESH organized youth groups.
They reinvested the money and started sheep fattening. In four rounds of sheep fattening they are able to generate signficant income.
With regard to their current capital accumulation, Adamu and his friends could sell 520 kg of honey and 812 kg of beeswax with total sum of 78,186 birr and 243,600 birr respectively. They could also generate 78,000 birr from animal fattening and 8,535 birr from small business in tea and coffee sales. In total, they are able to capitalize over 408,321 Birr, and their saving capacity has now reached about 35,200 Birr. In addition, the enterprise could pay back the loan worth of 200,000 Birr that was received from Dynamic Microfinance Institute.
The members of group used this financial flow to expand their sources of revenue by working on other businesses. For example, one of the group members had horse drawn cart before the project and the other has an auto rickshaw in which they provide transport services. The former is now able to make two carts using the returns from honey production and processing business.
Currently, the major source of revenue for the group is honey processing in which they collect crude wax from farmers and prepare processed wax that can be as input in modern beehives. So far, the main buyer of processed wax is the YESH project. Although the enterprise might face challenges in terms of market access in the future, adding value and creating linkage to sustainable market are important to make the sector more lucrative.
In the future, their plan is to expand the honey production and side businesses. Particularly, they are planning to distribute day old chicken for the surrounding farmers. They are also busy in planting different fruit trees, bee forages and coffee in the apiary site.
In sum, the beekeeping business in Ethiopia has been currently contributing to improve the income of many households and increasing export performance, even though the sector is mainly practiced using traditional basket hives with low productivity. According to a research conducted by Holeta Bee Research Center, Ethiopia has the largest bee population in Africa with over 10 million bee colonies, out of which, about 5 to 7.5 million are estimated to be hived while the remaining exist in the wild. This makes Ethiopia a leading in Africa and ninth in the world in honey production. Similarly, it stands first in Africa and third in the world in beeswax production.
The Ethiopian Herald October 26, 2019
BY ZELALEM GIRMA
