TENDAI BHEBE
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is equipping rural youths across the country with apiculture skills and knowledge as the UN agency seeks to improve livelihoods in local communities.
At least 300 youths were selected from six districts, Chegutu, Chimanimani, Kariba, Kwekwe, Marondera and Mazowe through the Bee Farmer Field School (BFFs).
The project, funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency aims at enhancing local sustainable agrifood systems and supporting rural economies through capacity building and green employment generation for rural disadvantaged youth in Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Timor Leste.
FAO Representative in Zimbabwe, Patrice Talla, said farmers’ field schools were participatory approaches towards strengthening community capacity to increase agricultural production and improve livelihoods in a way that is adapted to local contexts.
In the BFFs, participants are focused on productive apiculture activities in an environment where experiences and expertise are exchanged and youth learn by doing, Talla said.
“ BFFS provide rural youth with technical, business and environmental related skills along with sustainable support networks to start or continue their respective or group employment activities,” he said.
Talla said field schools provided technical skills including hive construction, site maintenance, hive management, biodiversity needs, harvest, processing of bee-derived products and packaging. Business skills are also transmitted including knowledge on markets, marketing, sale and organisation of producer associations.
Demand for honey and other bee products are high in Zimbabwe. Besides being a food and a sweetener, honey is used in making confectioneries and pharmaceuticals, and as a natural medicine.
There is also a strong market for beeswax for making cosmetics, antiseptics, and for floor polish, furniture and shoe polish, soap, skin lotions and cough syrups.
Honey has health benefits, as a detoxifier, and contains vitamins E, D, C, and K, which help strengthen the body’s immune system.
Talla said bees facilitated pollination, essential for plant and tree growth as it addressed climate change and biodiversity loss.
The apiaries serve as classrooms, where the youth gain practical and theoretical knowledge of apiculture and how to market and sell bee-derived products.
FAO runs various forms of farm field school in collaboration with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and its various extension programmes.
Talla said most youths in the rural areas were still struggling to get employment and apiculture was making noticeable changes in the lives of different communities as they were not just producing honey but becoming change agents for a sustainable future.
