Environment, Bio-diversity and Livelihood improvement in tribal areas through honey bee rearing

Tribal have traditionally lived near the forests and their livelihoods have been dependent on forests, horticulture and agriculture. gradually forest resources have diminished and fruit orchard and agriculture have given less returns. scientific studies have shown that wild bee and other tiny pollinating insects have dropped in numbers and it has resulted in less pollination. this have reduced yield of many forest products. JanMitram have tried bee keeping with tribal community, at a small scale. this has added income directly through sale of honey, but have given a great impetus to fruiting in farms, orchards and wild. scientific experiments and field experience have shown that this one activity has manifold results benefiting people, environment and economics.

We have selected few villages those are near to natural forests and tribal inhabitants are having fruit orchards. we intend to distribute honey bee hives, rearing boxes, honey collection equipment and other accessory material for first cycle of production.initially 80 honey production boxes shall be distributed to setup 16 honey production units. 16 farmers in four villages will setup this unit with 5 boxes each.

training and capacity building of tribal farmers along with the processes of honey extraction, storage and value addition. packaging and marketing arrangements shall be provided. organisation have existing networks of farmers cooperative in these areas, so scaling up activity shall follow with credit support. new farmers shall be added in due course of time and scaling up previous farmers hall be done with additional income derived from previous production cycle.

1. Direct benefit of honey bee keeping shall add-up Rs 20,000 with five boxes in each family. Whole investment from this project shall provide additional income of Rs 3.20 Lakh Rs per annum, for the first year. it is expected that two-three times of this shall increase in every successive year.
2. fruit production in these villages is expected to be doubled in every village. selected villages have over 100 Acre fruit orchard in each village, developed by JanMitram in recent years. total fruit yield in Approx 15 lakh per annum, that shall go up to 30 lakh per annum
3. nearby forest shall get benefit of bee pollination increasing yield of forest products i.e. mahua, Dhavai, harra, baheda, gum, lac, sal seed, bamboo etc shall increase substantially.
4. plant bio-diversity shall be restored and forest shall become dense. environmental and aesthetic value of this can not be measured in therms of monetary benefits.