Conference: Move to promote honey industry of Northeast India

GUWAHATI: To provide interface to farmers engaged in honey business and industry, a honey season is organised in Guwahati where leading industries in the segment and exporters are expected to participate.

North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation ( NERAMAC), a public Enterprise under the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) along with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry ( FICCI) is organizing the national level conference on bee keeping and honey Industry at Guwahati on May 22.

S Bhattacharjee, Managing Director of NERAMAC told ET the honey industry, during the last two decades, has undergone momentous change especially in terms of its demand and supply.

The world production of honey has grown at a substantial rate and even so the demand has always outweighed the supply. From an economic perspective, honey is extremely promising, in terms of export potential as well as domestic consumption, creating voluminous employment opportunities for the rural community by taking beekeeping as a means of livelihood.

He added that the North East Region shares a rich tradition of honey bee rearing and honey usages. The region has substantial natural potential for development of apiculture and honey processing which could not only provide another livelihood option to the farmers but could also provide the impetus for development of honey based food processing industry. Prominently, they are naturally organic in the north east.

He said the prominent companies like Dabur, representatives from Bee Board, exporters will participate in the programme. India roughly produced 60000 metric tones (MT) of natural honey. Around 26, 089.03 MT was exported to 50 countries in 2011-12. It amounted to the net worth of Rs 321.23 Crore.

He added that Northeast India, Punjab, Maharastra are the key areas of natural honey production. The domestic market of honey is worth Rs 225 Crore.