Amendment to Beekeeping Act sours local honey industry

(Trinidad Guardian) The news of potential legislation that will amend the law restricting the importation of honey into T&T has stung local beekeepers.

It first broke when T&T’s High Commissioner to Guyana, Conrad Enill, revealed last November that the legislation would be tabled in Trinidad’s Parliament.

The bill was tabled in Parliament last Friday and will come up for debate soon.

The importation issue has troubled governments of the past and has come knocking at the door of the Rowley administration.

Speaking to the Business Guardian from Guyana, Enill explained that T&T and Guyana developed a memorandum of understanding between both countries as a result of Guyana’s leadership in agriculture for Caricom.

In that context, the first thing both countries explored was the barriers to goods and services.

Honey emerged at the top of the list. According to Enill, President Dr Irfaan Ali of Guyana and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley “worked through what was necessary to change the legislation to allow for the honey issue to be resolved.”

He said there are several committees between both countries working through their various ministries on any issue that is interfering with the free movement of trade and are moving via legislation to make trade easier.

Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Avinash Singh, reaffirmed this in an interview with a regional newspaper on March 19.

“The honey matter is close to being resolved,” Singh had said while attending the Food and Agriculture Regional Conference in Guyana.

“All of the technical matters have already been reviewed and are ready for implementation,” he added.

The Business Guardian reached out to Singh for further details regarding the proposed move but he directed questions to Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Kazim Hosein.

Several questions to the ministry seeking clarity on the legislation, but no response was given.

Is the local honey industry in jeopardy?

For over half a century, this country’s honey, bees and bee-related products have been guided by the Food and Drug Act of 1960 and Beekeeping and Bee Products Act of 1935.

The act prohibits the importation of the product.

It has long been a contentious issue at the regional level, which goes against the Treaty of Chaguaramas signed in 1973 which created a Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).

Guyana has long called for access to enable its honey to pass through T&T’s ports and move to other Caribbean countries.

While the amendment to the legislation may be sweet news for the region, local beekeepers have concerns, noting that before the news of the amendment, the honey industry was already facing many challenges.

According to the beekeepers the Business Guardian spoke to, the top of the list was the continued deforestation across the country.

Veteran beekeeper, Bernard Mahabir, pointed to “indiscriminate logging,” which he said has led to vast acreages of trees being cut down, resulting in fewer and fewer trees for the bees to forage nectar.

Beyond logging, climate change is also having a severe impact on the local honey industry.

Mahabir said there is too much heat and not enough moisture in the ground.

“For the trees to produce the nectar, you need photosynthesis. In the severe dry season, there is not enough moisture in the ground and we are having too many dry nights so it is drying up the nectar,” he explained.

The number of bushfires across the country has also been contributing to the challenges the honey industry faces.

Mahabir, who is a second-generation beekeeper, started in the industry in 1972.

His father was a beekeeper and now Mahabir’s son is also a beekeeper.

Mahabir who served as president of the T&T Beekeepers’ Association between 1985 and 1995 further lamented that access roads into the forests are a major problem for farmers and the rise of the Africanized bees is forcing beekeepers further away from housing developments and into forested areas.

Another beekeeper, Amit Ramlochan, who has been in the business since 2001 also echoed that weather patterns, particularly the dry season, have been negatively impacting the production of honey.

Illegal honey in T&T?

Despite the challenges the industry faces, Mahabir insists beekeepers across the country are meeting the demand for the product.

However, beekeepers point to the illegal entry of the product from Venezuela which has been hampering business.

Why the a need for the illegal importation of a product that is not in short supply locally?

The price.

According to beekeepers, an average rum bottle of local honey costs between $175 and $200.

A bottle of honey illegally imported from Venezuela costs between $100 and $150.

The average price of local honey has gone up by $25 over the last few years, one beekeeper told the Business Guardian.

“It’s a quick fix for the unscrupulous people out there,” Mahabir said.

“They are getting the honey very cheap in Venezuela and they are selling it for exorbitant prices here in Trinidad,” he added.

Meanwhile, Ramlochan added factors such as deforestation and logging are driving up the costs of production for local honey.

“People keep cutting down the trees and developing land. It is harder for us to produce the amount of honey we used to produce long time. The price of sugar has also gone up,” he said.

While the price of local honey is higher than the illegally imported one, the quality of T&T honey however, has long been recognised as among the best in the world, with the product having won international awards down the years.

Importing honey - An international issue

T&T opening up its market to honey importation is not only a domestic issue.

It’s an international one.

Over the last two decades, the European Union (EU), Canada and the US have all banned the importation of honey.

The major culprit has been China.

In January 2021, the American monthly magazine, WIRED, cited the reasons behind such a mass shut-out of Chinese honey.

“There, cheap honey and sugar syrup are produced on an industrial scale and blended together by fraudsters.

“Beekeepers believe this adulterated honey is responsible for saturating the market, crashing global prices and deceiving millions of customers,” the report stated.

Anthony Telesford, a Tobagonian beekeeper who has been in the industry since the 1970s, said he is concerned about Chinese honey entering this country.

“My main concern with that is if you find somebody on the island who is going to import cheap, adulterated honey from China,” Telesford said.

He further explained, “Grenadian people have been trying to sell honey in Tobago so this will be their chance to do it, but, we in Trinidad need to put some type of control on it.

“For instance, if you have a beekeeper in a Caribbean country and they have 1,000 gallons of Grenadian honey to sell to Trinidad. We have to ensure he is not buying cheap honey from China, packaging it and sending it here as Grenadian honey.”

He recommended that controls must be put in place to avoid adulterated Chinese honey entering the country.

The adulterated honey from China could include corn syrup, antibiotics or sugar, Telesford claimed.

He said if imported honey can be verified as coming from the Caribbean, he has no problem with amending legislation to lift restrictions on honey imports in T&T.

In response to concerns Enill however, assured that the agencies that have responsibilities within the territories will have the “wherewithal” to ensure that honey being sold on the Caribbean market is authentic.

Regarding the standard of technology and equipment to meet the requirements of testing for authentic honey, Enill added, “To the best of my knowledge there are agencies tasked with that responsibility and those agencies will be strengthened to ensure that there is very strict compliance because there is a recognition towards what can occur and we have to protect the Caricom industry.”

Proper legislation imperative

Another major concern that comes with importing honey is the potential diseases that could come with it.

It is one of the major reasons why local beekepeers have been able to monopolise the industry.

Diseases are already a concern for local beekeepers amid the illegal trade of Venezuelan honey.

One beekeeper who has inside knowledge of how the honey industry is being dealt with at the State level sounded the alarm on Government’s legislation amendment.

“It is not a good thing for the industry, it is not a good thing for the country and it is not a good thing for the environment, and it is not a good thing for the consuming public that uses honey. When you open the market, if they don’t have proper legislation, conditions, and the ability to monitor the conditions, which I know that they don’t have, then anything will come in [the country],” the beekeeper said.

The consequences, he warned will be more fake honey entering the country.

“When that comes in, if we don’t have the capacity to test honey, which we don’t, and you are consuming it with chloramphenicol and all the other antibiotics, that is going to affect the health of the consumer. Not to mention, if honey comes in with diseases, that could be transferred to the bees here and that is what we are trying to safeguard against. That is what the Beekeeping Act has safeguarded Trinidad bees against since 1935.”

Meanwhile, former minister of food production, land and marine affairs under the former People’s Partnership government, Vasant Bharath, said the importation of honey has been a challenge he also had to confront when dealing with Caricom during his time in office.

“We had discussions during my time to see how we could work with other Caricom leaders to ensure the honey coming into Trinidad, if it was allowed to come in, would meet certain certification so the bee population here would not be infected in a way that they could die out,” he said.

In response to such concerns, Enill he believes the focus at this time is “simply Caricom because the region is operating with a new mandate both in terms of trade and in terms of movement for citizens when it comes to services - the Caricom region should have no restrictions.”

Saving bees and beekeepers

Beekeepers feel there is a genuine threat to the industry, and it goes beyond opening up the market to foreign imports.

Mahabir said T&T must also do its part environmentally to save the honey industry.

He said, “If the Government concentrates on planting native species again, we could boost up. We can’t only concentrate on planting pine but also the native species that produce honey like sip and mahogany and also integrate it with fruits so that the animals will also have food to eat. All the things that are high-producing nectar plants.”

On the financial side, Bharath said the Government must move to revolutionise the honey industry to take this international quality product to the global stage.

“If we are doing anything at all in the industry, we should encourage it to be not just a store but it should be cultivated on a commercial basis so that it becomes more competitive on the economies of scale on which it is being produced and it will allow us to get back onto the export markets to highlight the rich quality of Trinidadian honey,” he suggested.

Enill remained confident the respective agencies that need to deal with any issues emerging from this new era of beekeeping in T&T will be dealt with.

Beekeeping and Bee Products Act

There are certain stipulations as outlined in this act, governing the importation of honey.

These include:

Section 22 (1) No honey arriving in T&T by sea or by air shall be transshipped except as provided in this regulation.

Section 22 (2) Honey originating elsewhere than in any of the territories in the Windward and Leeward Islands shall not be transshipped in T&T.

Honey originating in any of the above-mentioned territories may be transshipped in the harbour of Port-ofSpain under the authority of a permit issued by the inspector and subject to the following provisions of this regulation.

Section 22 (3) No honey shall be brought or kept ashore or within one mile of the shore during transshipment or pending loading on the outgoing vessel.

Section 22 (7) No honey arriving in T&T in any vessel or aircraft from places overseas whether for transshipment or not shall in any circumstances be brought ashore from such vessel or removed from such aircraft on a land aerodrome.