Beekeeping is one of the important sectors in Tanzania economy providing both direct and indirect benefits. Direct benefits constitute honeybees products which include honey, beeswax, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, venom, brood and apilarnil. These products are used in food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, textiles, leather, electronics and candle industries with local, regional and global markets. Indirectly, beekeeping contributes to crop productivity and biodiversity conservation through pollination services. Through direct benefits provision, the sector employs over two million people along its value chain in rural and urban areas.
The potential for honey and beeswax production annually in Tanzania is big. However, contribution of beekeeping sector to the economy in Tanzania does not reflect the existing potential. The low production of bee products is attributed by poor management of bee colonies and underutilisation of bee resources. In addition, most of existing beekeeping industries are using inefficient technologies for value addition. These constraints have led to low hive productivity and quality of products, limited diversification and value addition.
Furthermore, market information is not shared among key stakeholders as it should be and inappropriate use of knowledge and skills for stocking and managing colonies by beekeepers still continues. One of the major reasons that contribute to this situation is the inadequate coordination and lack of guideline in provisioning of beekeeping training and extension services. Effective and efficient training and extension services in beekeeping can only be provided by people or institutions that have beekeeping knowledge and skills for offering extension services.
The National Beekeeping Policy of 1998 promotes and encourages different stakeholders to provisioning of training and extension services in order to ensure that the services provided meet standards. Some institutions or personnel currently offering training or extension services, lack beekeeping knowledge, extension provisioning skills or both. This is not a good practice and it cannot be left to continue. It is therefore the responsibility and interest of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT) to make sure that beekeeping training and extension is well coordinated, guided and provided by qualified institutions or personnel. This can only be achieved by enacting regulatory frameworks, supervising their implementations and monitor and evaluate their efficiency, effectiveness, outcomes and impacts. It is against this background, this Guideline has been prepared to establish set of procedures and recommendations that will guide how beekeeping training and extension services will be provided in Tanzania.
The National Beekeeping Training and Extension Guideline (NBTEG) provides the minimum guidance for service providers and users along the beekeeping value chain. It contains the means by which the government and all service providers will abide to for a successful provisioning of beekeeping training and extension in Tanzania. Areas guided included coordination of training and extension services provisioning, required competence in beekeeping and extension methods, quality assurance, safety and marketing of bee products, research results interpretation and dissemination, emerging issues in beekeeping and regulatory procedures in beekeeping training and extension services. Preparation of this Guideline has been made through valuable inputs from different stakeholders. Equally important, successful implementation of the Guideline depends on willingness and firm commitment, collaboration and participation of key stakeholders. We therefore look forward for their continued cooperation.
Dr. Ezekiel E. Mwakalukwa
DIRECTOR OF FORESTRY AND BEEKEEPING DIVISION
To download the guideline, please click below link
NATIONAL BEEKEEPING TRAINING AND EXTENSION SERVICES GUIDELINE
