Call for Solomon Islands government to back honey initiative

Transcript

A former premier of Solomon Islands' Malaita province is calling on the government to help people living in villages to start producing honey.

Reuben Moli, who lives just north of the provincial capital, Auki, says the government has forgotten about rural people, despite assertions to the contrary.

He told Annell Husband that Solomon Islands bees are free of the diseases that plague bees in other parts of the world and families who take up beekeeping could make more than US$160 a month.

REUBEN MOLI: We have the vegetation, we have the trees, we have the flowers that encourage bees to produce good honey.

ANNELL HUSBAND: And is honey something that people in Solomon Islands like to eat?

RM: They like to eat it.

AH: Is it a favourite thing? Is it a bit of a delicacy?

RM: It's very much a luxury at the moment, but they love to eat it. And they could use it for a lot of things. They could even mix it with their rice or eat it with kumara or use it for tea instead of buying sugar. They can use it for sweetening their tea. So it's one of the projects that I would see if the government can turn its eye there and put some money in that project they can do a lot of justice for village families, even families in the mountains, because honey could be also kept in the mountains. They could take it there. And it's easily transported. They could put a few bottles of honey in their bags and walk down to the market and have good money. So it's one project which I feel would be a good use for this RCF money by the members if they could open up that money and help the village people. Compared with poultry and pig - you need feed for them. And even here, the cost of feed is so high, let alone the walking distance and carrying the 40-kilo bag on your shoulders to the top of the mountain just to feed the chickens. The possibilities of other projects are very difficult. There are possibilities on the mountains. Honey is one, butterfly farming is one.

AH: Butterfly farming. For butterflies to be able to pollinate?

RM: Butterflies to pollinate, as well as be caught and sold.

AH: And you can farm them?

RM: We can farm them. All we need is to grow the vine that butterflies love, and to grow them on certain trees that are not so tall so that you can farm them on that vine. And when you see the lovers, you can collect the lovers and cage them, and they will hatch in the cage and you catch them that way.