President of Scientific Commission, Beekeeping for Rural Development
Dr. Nicola J. Bradbear
The mission of the Apimondia Scientific Commission for Beekeeping for Rural Development is to provide a forum for sharing information on how apiculture contributes to the development of sustainable livelihoods, world-wide. Beekeeping is a unique form of agriculture that is beneficial to the environment and provides economic reasons for people to look after their local habitats. It provides people with valuable sources of income and nutrition, yet the input costs can be very low.
The Commission is a network that provides unique opportunities for people to meet, share information and learn. We meet at Apimondia Congresses and Symposia, as well by e-mail communication between events. These events are attended by many beekeepers, and also by development professionals and academics who contribute to our knowledge of bees, beekeeping and development worldwide. At some Congresses we have organised a friendly and busy area within ApiExpo where beekeeping projects have the opportunity to arrange displays and make informal presentations about their work. This depends upon the good will of the Apimondia Congress Local Organising Committee to make space available.
In addition to the large Apimondia Congresses, the Scientific Commission for Beekeeping for Rural Development also organises smaller, regional meetings (for example the Caribbean Congresses held in alternate years since 1998), and joins with other Commissions to organise meetings, for example the Beekeeping Development and Trade meeting held in Vietnam in October 2010, and the Africa Symposium held in Arusha Tanzania I 2014. News about the Commission events are presented regularly in Bees for Development Journal.
Beekeeping for rural development is a cross cutting issue, and many topics covered by other Commissions are important for promoting beekeeping for development. The Commission gives attention to the role and value of beekeeping within rural development and best practise for promoting beekeeping, with special reference to the following aspects:
- How best to encourage and support beekeeping for people with few financial resources
- Extensive beekeeping and honey hunting practises, and issues of sustainability
- Utilisation of indigenous species and/or local races of honey bees
- Sustainable utilisation and conservation of honey and stingless bee populations
- Organic and social certification of bee keeping enterprises, for example fair trade
- Apiculture projects: their successful management and delivery
- Organisation of producer groups and cooperatives
- Trade and marketing issues, and trade criteria
- Cultural aspects of apiculture
- Beekeeping as part of non-timber forest production
- Government and trade policies that have consequences for beekeeping within rural development
- The role of beekeeping within issues of food security and poverty alleviation
Chiel Versluijs (Netherlands), Dickson Biryomumaisho (Uganda), Gladstone Solomon (Trinidad & Tobago), Harriet Eels (Chile), Kwame Aidoo (Ghana), Liana Hassan (Tanzania), M S Reddy (India), Milan Wiercx van Rhijn (France), Mohammed S. Khodabaks (Suriname), Nasreen Muzaffar (Pakistan), Nguyen Quang Tan (Vietnam), Nguyen Thu Hang (Vietnam), Ole Hertz (Denmark), Pratim Roy (India), Snehlata Nath (India).
The Scientific Commission for Beekeeping for Rural Development welcomes you to work with us. There is so much to do in promoting beekeeping as a sustainable way to help people make their own livelihood.
- The Standing Commission has created two working groups
- Working Group on honey trade in Africa – this Working Group, established at the Dublin Apimondia Congress in 2005, has now evolved into a new Network organisation, ApiTrade Africa, with its own events.
- Working Group on cooperatives and beekeeping associations – this working group is run by Ms Harriet Eels of Chile, who has organised Symposia at some recent Congresses
- The Standing Commission enjoys close working links with other networks
- ApiTrade Africa (see above)
- Asian Apiculture Association (AAA)
- Association of Caribbean Beekeepers Organisations (ACBO)
- Bees for Development