Stefano Kileo, a young Tanzanian agripreneur in beekeeping subsector has, through his company- Beegift Products and Services, secured an export market in South Africa for the company’s bee products.
The move which will see the Dodoma-based company start shipping various products such as honey, pollen, beeswax, royal jelly, propolis, purified candles, and bee venom by July this year is as a result of Tanzanian government’s initiatives for opening up opportunities abroad.
“We are glad that we managed to win the South African market opportunity during a recent International Organisation of Beekeeping Associations (Apimondia) conference that was held in Durban,” said Kiloe, chief executive officer at Beegift Products and Services.
According to him, the company received orders to export 20 tonnes of honey, for instance, after every 60 days during the conference following an excellent reception of the country’s honey by end users in foreign markets.
“This, we attribute to our local producers who have managed to consider and maintain the quality of honey for all seasons of the year,” said Kileo.
South Africa becomes the third export market for the company after Kenya and Uganda where they exported over 8.5 tonnes last year.
More markets
After South Africa, the company is now looking into the Asian countries, China in particular following the government announced opportunities for local beekeepers to export bee products to the international market.
“We are embarking on the construction of the modern beehives to help our 90% smallholder farmers who still depend on traditional hives which are not economical,” said Kileo adding that the company’s workshop has the capacity to construct 400modern hives a month.
The firm will also be educating the farmers, who produce 60% of the company’s honey, on the opportunities available in beekeeping and other products that they can sell apart from honey and beeswax.
Since 2019, when the company started a demo farm in Dodoma, it has specialized in producing hives with a capacity of 80 kilogrammes of pollen and more than 5 tonnes of natural honey per month.
“We encourage farmers to venture in the subsector since some products such as pollen are more lucrative as a kilo of bee pollen costs between Sh200,000 and Sh300,000 and takes a few days to harvest,” said the Bachelor of Science in Animal Science graduate from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA).
Tanzania beekeeping
Tanzania beekeeping industry alone is estimated to generate about US$ 1.7 million each year from sale of honey and beeswax.
In rural Tanzania, it employs about 2 million farmers, which is a very small number considering Tanzania has a population of over 60 million people.
According to the Tanzania Forestry Service (TFS) strategic plan, the country produces at least 30,400 tonnes of honey annually but the plan is to increase the production to 60,000 tonnes in 2025.
The East African country is the second leading producer of honey in Africa after Ethiopia as it is endowed with over 450 natural forests that include plantations, mangrove, nature forest reserves and bee reserves.
[…] to a report by Farmers Review Africa, the move is a result of the Tanzanian government’s initiatives to open […]
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