Nigeria to generate $10 billion from hives, honey – USAID

Nigeria can generate over 10 billion dollars from local and international trade in honey and other hive products, David Musa, Team Leader, USAID Bee Keeping Pollination Project said.

According to report from NAN, Musa disclosed this during an interview on the sideline of a Capacity Building Workshop for bee-farmers in Goshen, Nasarawa State on Thursday.

In his words, ‘‘Honey trade can generate up to 10 billion dollars if you look at cumulative values from honey and other hive products and the value of pollination.’’

The team leader who also the Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Apiculture Platform, further disclosed that the domestic consumption rate of honey in the country was currently 380,000 tonnes, with a global price of about 4.5 billion dollars, stressing the need for Nigeria to get honey export certification from the European Union, as it would give credibility to the forthcoming largest Africa Apiculture Trade to be hosted by Nigeria in 2018.

‘‘Nigeria is going to host the largest bee keeping trade in Africa, which is the largest platform that will bring together many bee keeping enterprises, which will put the country on the global bee keeping map.

‘‘Nigeria consumes about 380,000 tonnes of honey a current global price of about 4.5 billion dollars and that is just domestic consumption of honey; we have not gone into industrial production, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals,’’ he said.

Also speaking, Mohammed Mahmud, a bee-farmer and participant at the workshop, commended the Federal Government and the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) for the workshop.

Mahmud, who is also the House Committee Chairman on Population and National Identity Card, assured that necessary legislation capable of driving the bee farming industry would be looked into by the National Assembly, though the Federal Government had made necessary provision in the 2017 budget to establish standard laboratory to test hive products before exportation, he said.

NAN reports that other bee farmers and participants at the three-day programme/workshop tagged: ‘EU Third Country Listing;’ An Eligibility Criteria to Export Honey to the EU Market, expressed regret over the constant neglect of bee farming, and therefore called for more support from the federal and state governments to make the trade attractive to many farmers.