The SBDARA Beekeeping Project in Malawi
Malawi is a country of exhilarating beauty, known as the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’. Formerly Nyasaland, Malawi is a small African country at the southern end of the Great Rift Valley and life revolves around the vast, sparkling, expanse of Lake Malawi - the lake of stars. At night the moon shimmers across the lake and it is full of lights as fishermen, in their precarious dugout canoes, struggle to make a living.
Malawi ranks among the world's poorest countries with 90% of the population depending on subsistence farming. Six million people in Malawi live with the annual threat of hunger, with poor economic prospects and women suffering continued discrimination. Malawi has a fragile environment and a high rate of forest loss but the miombo woodland in the highlands of the north is excellent beekeeping country. It was against this background that the SBDARA Beekeeping Project was started after a recommendation to me by a VSO volunteer.
Since the beginning I am proud to have been supporting the Small Beekeepers Development and Research Association (SBDARA) with both fundraising and technical input designed to build local skills. SBDARA represents the combined efforts of over 100 beekeeping groups to improve their incomes. The distance from the urban markets and lack of transport made it hard for the beekeepers to sell their honey for a good price. People were trading from a position of weakness in a buyers market. SBDARA therefore developed a marketing organisation which is now called The Nkhata-bay Honey Producers Co-operative (NHPC)
NHPC is a co-operative marketing organisation that provides a convenient and honest outlet for beekeepers to sell their honey. At the start of the project Bees Abroad provided seed corn capital to allow honey to be purchased from the villagers for immediate cash. They also sponsored the development of a resource and packing centre. In addition, SBDARA gained three years small business funding from the British High Commission which, all being well, will ensure the long term sustainability of the project. There is also a garden with fruit trees and crops to support the project, and a tree nursery. This SBDARA have now started to develop into a new commercial enterprise.
NHPC buys honey from beekeepers and the staff pack it into proper bottles with good labels. They search out new customers, often using recycled mobile phones and then deliver the honey using the local minibus transport, or, more recently a rented 1 tonne vehicle. Last year they sold over 7 tonnes of honey in this way. A huge effort and an admirable achievement.
Beekeeper involvement is central to this project. This is done by establishing beekeeping clubs of 10 -12 people. Members pay a small subscription to belong to a club and get a beekeepers record card to show they are producers. Each club elects a representative to the zonal committee while each zonal committee elects a representative to the board of directors of the co-operative.
In support, SBDARA is building a system of village based field extension services with locally based trainers. There are 7 excellent trainers who have all taken the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) assessment in Basic African Beekeeping. The trainers have been given bicycles so they can hold short but regular training sessions in the villages and most beekeeping groups have now received a subsidised smoker.
In addition to the two main project workers, Lenson Simumba and George Kamanga (pictured) and the 7 trainers, the project employs a secretary, two night watchmen and a gardener. Casual employment is provided for builders and labourers, honey packers, two tailors and a carpenter. The staff are growing in confidence and expertise in this ‘learning by doing’ environment and are now able to cope with work as diverse as honey packing, managing the centre, developing the tree nursery, organising courses, accounting and writing funding reports.
Already the staff have met the President, who praised the honey, and had the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade to visit. The ministerial visit brought the television cameras who made a programme about the project and the bees which has been broadcast four times on Malawi TV.
Getting a business and an NGO up and running in Africa while training people to run it is a time consuming business and will take more time and money yet. The design of the project will enable it to become self financing eventually so that training and field extension services can be funded from the marketing activities. It is expected that this project will grow to form the basis of valuable social infrastructure facilitating further development initiatives in the region.
project code: 2009/SBDARA/PG/02
