Beekeeping has been identified by Government as a sector to generate wealth and create employment opportunities for the youth, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir said
The Minister’s reports came while delivering the opening address at the Beekeeping Forum hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Barbados Apiculture Association at Gall Hill Resource Centre, St John.
He said during a three- to six-month period, a developing beehive could produce up to 40 000 pounds of honey for the selling price of $20 000 per pound. Weir indicated that investment in the apiculture sector could fuel entrepreneurship and employment opportunities.
“Bees can play a role in the employment of youth, especially females who though not keepers in their own right, can develop a small business centered around the bottling and sale of honey,” Weir said.
“We do recognize the importance of the development of strong cottage industries in Barbados where we can engage females more and find better ways to help them to become entrepreneurs and therefore [reduce] that gap between opportunity and societal affairs where they then tend to become victims of the criminal elements.”
Weir revealed that the Ministry was undergoing a Farmers Empowerment and Enfranchisement Drive which seeks to engage disadvantaged youth and other members of society in the agriculture sector. He also said the Scotland District would be used as one of the prime areas for apiculture development.
“Under our Farmers’ Empowerment and Enfranchise Drive [we] give young people a chance to participate in the planting of trees, fruit trees and intercropping where they are given the opportunity to plant legumes so that they get that burst of income,” Weir stated.
He emphasized that bees play a critical role as not only pollinators but also the creation of products such as royal jelly, beeswax, and pollen.
Also in attendance at the beekeeping forum was parliamentary representative for St John, Charles Griffith. He said that he sought to provide opportunities for his community through the apiculture initiative and he would strive to make his constituency the leading honey producers in the island.
“We have the land, we have the guys on the block who are asking and begging for a second chance and it is part of my remit to ensure that every possible avenue for them to get involved in the process is there. I commit to ensuring that the blocks of St John, in particular, but those young people in St John, who are unemployed see apiculture as the vehicle, a viable option to move them towards the next level,” he said.
Ena Harvey, InterAmerican Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) representative to Barbados was also in attendance to present a honey extraction to the region’s fastest-growing beekeeping association, the Barbados Apiculture Association. (KK)
those figures of 40000lbs and $20000 ate 100% wrong!
The lbs/hive and $$/lb are W-A-Y off. Would be extremely lucky to get $20/lb
These people can talk a good game. I haven’t heard the minister outline anything in the budget for this initiative. So where suddenly has this talk come from?
I’m not meaning to sound gloomy here, but it’s reality. We just came out of a budget presentation. I’m asking where in the budget was this facilitated? Did the minister only recognize these things after the budget was prepared and presented? I’m becoming more surprised by Indar’s utterances.
Greengiant
u are being a a.. again
why should behive be budgeted for?
why must government finance everything?
government is making $5000 available for viable companies startups. Isnt that enough for a project like this?
sometimes take off your political hat and think before you comment.
iMPOSSIBLE!! 40 000 pounds of honey for the selling price of $20 000 per pound.
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, he fa real, wanna ministers never seize to amaze me, where as i think that each parish should have at least 4 man made hives to help with pollination of plants, here is no way honey can fetch that amount of money per pound, even for last year in the USA honey didnt even retail for no more than $8.00 per pound,one gallon of honey is about 12 pounds, and a gallon of natural honey here in the USA is $52.00, some of you shouldnt be in politics at all, just come and talk nuff arm hole,
Too many Bees in Barbados already.
Right now, they stinging everybody.
We got to get rid of them at the polls next time for sure.
WAS THE MINISTER TALKING BOUT WHITE SNOW, SNOW FLAKES, POWDER, maybe HARRY TURNOVER CARSON CODAGON OR CARL HARPER CAN HELP ME OUT ON THIS
roger
how yo know it the minister and not the reporter/publisher that giving the wrong figures?
Greengiant wrote: “I’m not meaning to sound gloomy here….”
You are the architect of doom and gloom in every room, Greengiant.
There is not a single post where you do not express negativity and despair. As a matter of fact, the only government that can lead us all to the Promise Land is the crumbling UPP, according to the Gospel of Greengiant.
It does not seem that you can find anything in that masterpiece of a Budget to criticize since it has put more money in your purse by adjusting the income tax bands, so you are pouncing on Indar to talk about and cost a beehive initiative during his Budget speech that is not of his Ministry’s doing.
And by the way, what a woeful “first response” to the Budget on VOB by the new UPP candidate for St. George North, Ambrose Grosvenor. Lynette Eastmond should have sent you, instead. He was only outdone by the unprepared DLP leader, Verla Depeiza.
So far this BLP administration has embarked on several initiatives to spur entrepreneurship among persons so motivated, by providing $5,000 Trust Loans and financing for rural development projects. You seem to be expecting the Minister of Agriculture to don boots, gloves and face mask to make this beekeeping initiative a project within his Ministry.
No wonder Breadfruit advise you to “think before you comment”, and I concur with him.
BREADFRUIT, I would hate to think that journalism in barbados so poor, that them wont check before running such a print, and seeing that the minister havent came to make a retraction then it must be so
Roger
I saw it on the news last night
The minister said 40lbs and $20
The minister would have needed firing if he had used the figures that were printed here on BT.
you were very foolish to think a minister would have given those false figures in the first place.