Low production affecting Kenya’s honey export potential

Honey traders at Koriema trading centre on the Marigat-Kabanet road in Baringo County sell honey to passengers. Kenya has a huge potential to export honey but this has been affected by low production and slow adoption of modern bee keeping technology. PHOTO/FILE

By  WYCLIFF KIPSANG

What you need to know:

  • Many farmers in Kenya were also yet to commercialise honey production as the sector is still regarded as a preserve of the poor.
  • There is a huge market for the product in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
  • Kitui County is leading in honey production with more than 389,000 beehives followed by Baringo County with 176,000.
  • Leading honey producers in Africa such as Ethiopia, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe have the same favourable climatic conditions for beekeeping as Kenya.

Kenya’s honey sector has a huge potential but the country has no capacity to export its honey products due to low production, a conference was told Saturday.

Kenya Honey Council chairman Mr Kithuma Nzainga told the Baringo County Honey Conference that there is a huge market for the product in Europe, Asia and the Middle East but said that the production in the country is still very low and cannot cope with the demand.

“Inadequate skills, low adoption of modern technologies and poor market organization are largely to blame for the low production.

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“Baringo’s honey cannot be rivalled in any part of the world. We should be in the league of leading honey producers,” said Mr Nzainga during the conference held at the Kenya School of Government in Kabarnet.

He cited Kitui County as leading in honey production with more than 389,000 beehives followed by Baringo County with 176,000.

Others top producers are Meru (139,000), West Pokot (129,000), Embu (100,000), Makueni (85,000) while Tharaka Nithi County has 77,000 beehives.

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Mr Nzainga said that many farmers in Kenya were also yet to commercialise honey production as the sector is still regarded as a preserve of the poor.

He said other leading honey producers in Africa such as Ethiopia, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe had the same favourable climatic conditions for beekeeping as Kenya.

Baringo County Governor Benjamin Cheboi, who opened the conference, said that a honey processing factory will soon be set up in the area and called on farmers to upscale their production.

He said that the county government was projecting at producing 10,000 tonnes of honey which will earn the county Sh5 billion annually in the next five years up from the current 579 tonnes annually which is earning the county Sh144 million.

Mr Cheboi disclosed that the county currently has 87,000 log hives, 13,000 Kenya top bar hives and 4,000 Langstroth beehives.

“We call on our farmers to form cooperatives in order to develop the honey value chain and avoid being exploited by unscrupulous middlemen,” said Mr Cheboi who was accompanied by the members of the county executive team.

The three-day conference, which started on Thursday, brought together scholars, researchers, bankers and agricultural research organisations.

It, among other issues, aimed at finding and sharing modern technology to improve the bee keeping and honey sector.

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