- Title: KENYA / FILE: Pokot community turn ancient practice into profits
- Date: 15th April 2010
- Summary: SHOPPER BUYING HONEY AT SUPERMARKET VARIOUS OF BOTTLED HONEY ON SHELF (SOUNDBITE) (Kiswahili) GLADYS KARANJA, SHOP ATTENDANT, SAYING: "The quality is good and at least in a week, I sell about 24 large jars and 48 of the small ones so that's why we stock it."
- Embargoed: 30th April 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Industry,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA2XG1429XQ2I593JW4HCRQ6DE1
- Story Text: The Pokot community in northern Kenya have harvested honey for centuries, mostly for domestic use and also as a valuable gift in traditional ceremonies like weddings.
The Pokot are a pastoralist community and rely almost entirely on their livestock to make a living. But in 2004, a project for sustainable promotion of small businesses, called Cabesi, started marketing honey from the area which encouraged the community to start selling their honey.
The farmers take their honey to collection centres where honeycombs are bought for about 1.5 U.S. dollars per kilogram.
Paul Losute works as the project assistant with Cabesi. After the beekeepers collect their honeycombs in a small town called Konyau, Losute picks them up and transports them to a town 200 kilometres (125 miles) away for processing.
"We see it progressing. We expect that in the next three to five years the farmers who are now about 200 will have doubled and within six or seven years it will even have tripled because, they are now realising the benefits of being beekeepers," said Losute.
At the processing plant in Kapenguria, honeycombs are inspected, weighed and loaded into a centrifuge to extract the honey.
After that, Francis Oduor, the factory's manager, removes impurities from the syrup through sieving and warming.
Honey from the Pokot community is said to be pure and is used for its health and nutritional benefits as well medicinal properties.
"Most of our honey is organic, why I am saying organic, the bees have picked their flowers from natural forests places that they don't do agriculture and as you understand most people use chemicals in spraying or killing pesticides in crops and in those places," said Oduor.
After honey is extracted, the honeycombs are washed and then repeatedly boiled in water to remove the wax which is used to make candles.
The processed honey is also in high demand and can be found in various local stores where a jar sells for about 3 U.S. dollars.
"The quality is good and at least in a week, I sell about 24 large jars and 48 of the small ones so that's why we stock it," said Gladys Karanja, a shop attendant at Kapenguria's main supermarket.
In Pokot, young men are taught how to make traditional beehives from a young age. Although easy to make, they often get destroyed during harvests because they are placed between tree branches.
Ng'oriamuna Punjan owns 10 beehives and wants to increase the number to 50.
"This is the finished beehive. I have smeared it with cow dung to seal it well. It is now ready for use; I will put some grass on it to help cool the beehive when it's hot outside. I will also make holes through it using hot metal rods so that I can tie it up on a tree," said Punjan.
Apart from producing honey and wax, bees are also crucial for pollinating a third of the world's food crops, but in recent years scientists in Europe and America say a mysterious phenomenon called colony collapse disorder, or CCD, is killing the insects.
Though Africa has not yet been affected, scientists are also investigating a parasitic mite that's attacking colonies. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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