Honey Producers To Soon Get A Policy To Regulate Operations

Honey Producers in Ghana will soon get a policy to regulate the operations of the business and its exports, Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Agribusiness, Anthony Morrison has said.

According to him, implementing the National Honey Production and Investment Policy will enable the country achieve a trillion-dollar sector in 2030 projected by the World Bank.

Speaking to Joy Business after the launch of the “Make Ghana’s Honey Fit for Export Project” he said, “it is very important that we’re starting with the Make Ghana’s Honey Fit for Export Project for now. There are other programmes that the Chamber of Agribusiness and its partners in Germany are initiating that is going to harmonise activities and also to engage the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to design a National Honey Production and Investment Policy.”

“We need to have a beekeeping industry which will live up to the World Bank’s report. The World Bank report indicated that if African farmers can uptake high skills and adopt technology, they will attain a trillion-dollar sector by 2030. So we believe that our honey industry serves purpose”, he added.

The CSIR Food Research Institute launched the “Make Ghana’s Honey Fit for Export Project”.

Project Coordinator, Dr. Courage Besah-Adanu revealed that the project is to determine the kinds of honey produced in the country and to guide in the formulation of standards for the sector.

“We want to scale the analysis from the Volta and Oti regions to other parts of the country so that as scientists, we can define the honey we have and profile it to know what we have to guide setting standards for the industry. This we believe will improve the packaging of honey products to clear doubts of the average consumer then we can enter premium markets like the EU,” he explained.

Chairman for the Beekeepers Association, Patrick Addo Newman, expressed his excitement for the launch of the project.

He believes the project will upscale honey production in Ghana.

“This particular project that has been launched will help the industry grow. I’ve been in this industry for the past 30 years and the industry is still where it is, but with this, we will be able to identify the kind of honey we produce.”

“Aside that, we’re unable to export and to produce to feed the local market. We believe this project will help us improve our products to be able to export,” he said