Beekeepers demonstrate resilience during COVID-19
A Sappi-sponsored programme which helps communities adjacent to forestry plantations to become beekeepers, has shown some unexpectedly encouraging results during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Non-profit consultant and founder of the African Honey Bee programme, Guy Stubbs, who has more than 30 years’ experience in small and micro-enterprise development, was struck by the incredible resilience being demonstrated by the families that have been part of this beekeeping project. Collectively, since the beginning of the year, the participating families have harvested about five tonnes of honey, earning close to R360,000, despite the national lockdown. During a recent survey undertaken in the Sokhulu community in KwaZulu-Natal (North of Richards Bay), where the project has been running for the last couple of years and a new community in Thembalethu, Mpumalanga where training had not yet begun, Guy noticed some marked differences in people’s approach to the situation brought about by the international health crisis. “While the families in Thembalethu were watching TV and waiting for government to hand out food parcels, the 100 families that we interviewed in Sokhulu were producing and even selling vegetables, chickens, eggs and honey,” he says. All 100 families were producing honey, 85 were growing vegetables, 27 were producing eggs and 39 were producing chickens for meat,” he says.