Enhancing Food Security through Sustainable Beekeeping
Over years, beekeeping has proven to be one of the best practices by rural communities to improve livelihoods with less investment costs. It has a great potential of contributing to Kenya’s food basket as well as foreign earnings.
Apiculture, a livestock subsector is a good venture for small scale farmers as it is completely sustainable, has better income and needs less input.
However, within rural areas, majority of beekeepers are still using traditional production systems accompanied with poor technical skills affecting their yields. But this is changing.
To improve beekeeping, smallholder farmers in Pellow Community Conservancy, West Pokot have now adopted the use of modern beehives which ensures easy and maximum harvest, paving way for them to double their honey yields.
Through the Ustahimilivu Programme, a resilience project supported by the European Union, 200 farmers have received Langstroth hives from CEFA (European Committee for Training and Agriculture) a consortium partner.
Langstroth hive is a vertical modular beehive that has the key features of vertically hung frames, a bottom board with entrance for the bees. Its boxes contain frames for brood and honey with an inner cover and top cap that provides weather protection. This type of hive doubles honey yields as compared to the traditional ones.
Contemporary hives ranges between 10-15kgs but Langstroth fetches between 20-30kgs per harvest. It uses a multi-layered structure and removable frames to encourage bees to build their combs in an orderly fashion and make it easy for beekeepers to harvest honey. The frames are designed to separate honeycombs as bees attach honeycombs to adjacent frames making it easier for beekeepers to manage the bees and honey collection effortlessly.
The 200 farmers who received the hives have been trained on how to use and operate the hives as well as on modern bee keeping practices.
“This support will really benefit and empower our community economically," Chepokugho Lokorkilim, a beneficiary of the beehives.
Each farmer received two hives and a bag containing honey harvesting equipment which includes boots, honey uncapping knife, beekeeping suit, bee brush and a smoker.
“This will go a long way in improving the livelihoods of the farmers and addressing food security challenge in the area,” says Thaddeus Ombati from CEFA.
The main objective of the Ustahimilivu Programme is to support increased drought and climate change resilience in communities in the ASAL areas of Kenya. Specifically, to enhance food and nutrition security of vulnerable households, especially women and children, and to generate sustainable livelihoods and protect productive assets in West Pokot. It is a partnership between the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), CEFA (agriculture and water provision), AMREF (health, hygiene, and nutrition) E4IMPACT (enterprise and value chain development) and SOMINIREC (peace building and conflict management).