Zim moves to tap into honey export market

ZIMBABWE has started commercialising honey production to tap into the vast export opportunities.

In 2016, the global natural honey industry was worth $2 billion with the European Union being the largest importer spending about $970 million on 322 374 tonnes.

According to a ZimTrade newsletter for August, the honey sector has begun the process of commercialising honey production in Zimbabwe.

“This process will enable the gathering of information pertaining to the sector, which will allow evidence-based decision making on the production and trade of honey.

“The information will include the location of apiaries, production capacity, disease monitoring and control,” it said.

The national export and trade promotion agency also quoted an official from the Veterinary Service Department Dr Jairus Machakwa saying the main objective of the exercise was to register over 80 percent of apiaries in Zimbabwe by 30 September 2017.

According to the World Organisation for Animal Health, it is mandatory that a competent authority has “knowledge of, and authority over all domesticated apiaries existing in the country or zone/compartment and approval of breeding apiaries for export trade”.

Registration of apiaries is an important step towards the commercialisation of the sector, which, according to Trade Map, has seen the country recording no exports for the past five years. “Without registration of our apiaries, it means that all the local honey in retail shops is actually illegal”, said Beekeepers’ Association executive director, Mr Mutandwa Chaipa.

For natural honey to gain access to the Europe Union market, the producing country has to be on the approved list (third country list) and fulfil certain requirements such as quality, packaging, traceability, health and safety. Zimbabwe is not on the list of approved suppliers of honey to the EU.

The national registration of apiaries therefore provides a base for lobbying to be on the third country list of exporters. Meanwhile, ZimTrade was encouraging potential and existing exporters to make use of the online “Trade obstacles alert” platform available on the Zimbabwe Trade Information Portal to improve the ease of doing export business.

The “Trade obstacles alert” platform allows exporters to report to ZimTrade, the impediments they are facing when exporting or importing their products.