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Apiculture (as the chain of activities from beekeeping, procudtion of honoey, processing and marketing) had been supported by the prevous project on food security. In the stakeholder workshops on Local Economic Development in the districts of Tuyen Hoa and Minh Hoa, apiculture was ranked as a priority subsector in the development plans. The major reasons for the SMNR-CV project to support this sub-sector included:
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- high potential for production up-scaling
- high demand in the local markets with excellent product reputation
- easily accessible by poor, marginalized population groups
- good combination of income generating and conservation of natural resources
In the initial value chain workshops on apiculture, bottlenecks and constraints were identified which included poor business linkages and cooperation among the local beekeepers, input suppliers and service providers and, most importantly, a lack of management and marketing knowledge.
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In view of the high demand and high retail price of honey on the local markets (double to four times as high as world market prices), the upgrading strategy for the sub-sector focussed on local markets. The core of the strategy was to be the establishment of district apiculture associations for which a master plan and specific action plans were formulated. The associations were to consolidate existing bee keeping clubs and support the foundation of new clubs with the aims to increase production and to introduce and monitor quality standards.
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The SMNR-CV project facilitated the implementation of these plans and specifically supported a series of technical trainings by “master beekeepers”, an information campaign building up a trademark with improved packaging and labelling and a series of management and marketing trainings with key members of the disticts associations. By the end of September 2008, the major milestone was achieved that the associations were fully operational. Consequently. The support by the SMNR-CV was phased out.
Apart from technical and organizational improvements, the support by the SMNR-CV has contributed to a significant increase of the total value added in the sub-sector, and to a likewise significant increase of net incomes by the individual bee keepers. The average productivity of bee hives could be increased by 50 %. The number of bee keepers could be doubled in a relatively short period of time. While the average additional household income from apiculture has doubled over the last four years, the income of the more experienced bee keepers (those who practiced apiculture already back in 2004) has increased by a factor of more than 10.
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