As the BenchMaji-2SCALE partnership continues to foster women and youth inclusion through the adoption of modern bee-keeping techniques, the need for easy access to modern hives has become more pronounced.
For 2SCALE, identifying opportunities for youth empowerment and engagement in agriculture is at the core of our interventions. In Ethiopia, beehive production has been identified as a viable employment opportunity for young people in the honey sector. Since the inception of the partnership in 2019, over 3,304 farmers have embraced modern beekeeping, which mainly entails backyard apiculture and the use of modern beehives.
On December 20-24 2021, 30 young honey producers and six coaches were trained on beehive making and management. All the 30 youth are engaged in beekeeping, either as individuals or as part of a youth group in their locality. They thus have a clear understanding of beekeeping.
32-year-old Faji Bekele is a small-holder farmer. He also practices beekeeping, an interest that developed owing to the fact that his parents were also into beekeeping. Through the training, he learned about the benefits of modern hives, a realization that has made him identify this as an opportunity for him to commercially produce modern hives. He mastered the skill and has currently built 10 hives in readiness to establish a business. He narrates:
As a young person engaged in beekeeping, I found the training very interesting and useful. We learned about backyard beekeeping and improved apiary management. I also got to learn more about modern hives and their benefits.I use traditional hives on my farm since this is what we are used to. However, during the training, I was motivated to shift to modern hives and perfect the skill of building the hives as a commercial venture.
Ripple effect of the training
For Faji, the training was an eye-opener. It provided useful insights on opportunities for young people to construct hives for sale to beekeepers in the region.
The first step I took was to acquire the necessary material required to construct modern beehives. Even though building them using bare hands is a bit tedious, I decided to perfect the skill by building hives for my farm. I have constructed 10 modern beehives but haven’t sold any yet. Now that I have perfected the skill, I plan to make this a business venture alongside beekeeping. It cost me about 2300 ETB ($ 44.8) to produce a single hive. Based on this, and the labor incurred, I know I can sell and make profit out of it. Furthermore, as more farmers learn of the benefits of modern hives, demand will increase, making this a viable business.