Honey hotline could help boost beekeepers' incomes in PNG

Transcript

A honey hotline could bring sweet rewards to beekeepers in Papua New Guinea.

Oxfam New Zealand and the New Zealand Government have gone into partnership with two PNG businesses to provide a hotline and mobile support service to help them boost production.

Oxfam PNG Livelihoods Manager David Shields told Jo O'Brien the honey industry has been in decline, but has great potential.

DAVID SHIELDS: We're supporting them to give technical advice to farmers who otherwise don't have any ways of working out how to resolve problems that are happening to their hives. So extension officers will go around give them support give them advice they'll also sell them equipment at a low cost this includes a credit basis because a rural farmer in Papua New Guinea spends about 900 kina a year from our research, so maybe about 500 New Zealand dollars a year. So they don't have a lot of spend so a credit scheme through these businesses for the equipment they need will mean they can still access that and at the same time farmers will be able to sell directly to these businesses the honey that they produce saving them the cost of going to market and all the way to town. So we hope that this will increase income and help people build their family businesses.

JO O'BRIEN: So why is there a need for this support for the bee keepers?

DS: Bee keeping is good income for them but they don't have a lot for information about how to look after bees. A lot of the farming families they know how to grow vegetables and somewhat look after livestock but bees are different so when they start to look after them it's quite difficult they have to learn and that's one thing we'll be supporting. The other thing like in other countries around the world there are pests and diseases that come up so at the moment there are two types of mites that attack the bees and reduce production that's something that farmers need to learn about and have ways to address it.

JO: How important is the honey industry to the economy over there?

DS: The honey industry is really small at the moment however the demand for honey domestically is really high. The businesses themselves say they have no problem with selling, it's production which is  a problem. We're hoping that because there is such a demand we'll be able to instead of there being several hundred farmers who look after bees , we're hoping they'll be seven hundred or a thousand bee keepers around the country.

JO: So does this have the potential to create more work for a lot more people and bring in more income?

DS: Absolutely bee keeping can potentially double the income of a rural family. The price for honey is quite high and the production is relatively cheap so this is something that is very suitable for rural farmers in PNG, it's just about getting them the skills and the knowledge to address problems when they come up.