Bees for Development organised a Honey Trade Workshop for two days prior to the Apimondia Congress in Dublin, Ireland in August 2005. The Workshop was organised as part of our DFID/BLCF Project on African Honey, and arranged in co-operation with two of Apimondia’s Standing Commissions: Beekeeping for Rural Development and Beekeeping Technology and Equipment.  The main purpose of the Workshop was to enable more producer groups to become eligible for honey export to the EU.  Speakers – from 18 different countries - included those from producer groups already on the EU’s list of ‘third countries’, those hoping to join soon, and honey importers and buyers.

Workshop photo gallery
Click on a thumbnail image (below) to select a larger version then browse the Workshop Gallery. Larger images may require time to load over slower connections (56kbps or less)

Images © Nicola Bradbear

Proceedings of the Workshop
Presented here you will find information about how to prepare a Residue Monitoring Plan, information from the two African countries that have Residue Monitoring Plans in place for several years (Tanzania and Zambia), from two that have recently joined the list (Kenya and Uganda), and from other African countries that have yet to develop Residue Monitoring Plans. There are also papers from the Caribbean and Thailand.

The Annexes contain downloadable PDF documents that help towards developing a Plan, as well as more information about the Workshop and contact details of the participants.
 

UPDATES:

EU HONEY LEGISLATION - THIRD COUNTRIES UPDATE
The latest list of so-called 'third' countries - those authorised to import honey into the EU - issued on 7 March 2006 is as follows: Argentina, Australia, Belize, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Israel, Jamaica, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Pitcairn Islands, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, Tanzania, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, USA, Vietnam and Zambia. See also Bees for Development Journal 59, 63 and 72.

A NEW SECTION HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE WEBSITE OF THE EU’S HEALTH AND CONSUMER PROTECTION DIRECTORATE (DG SANCO) which can be accessed at:
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/food/food/chemicalsafety/residues/third_countries_en.htm.
This ‘Third country residues' web page explains the elements required for drawing up a residues control plan, and the process by which such plans, and the guarantees they offer, are assessed in order to determine equivalence with Community law or alternative guarantees.

FOREWORD AND INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS
Dr Nicola Bradbear

You can download Dr Bradbear's Power Point Presentation - see foot of page

This Workshop took place as part of Bees for Development’s DFID/BLCF - funded work to build the capacity of African honey producer organisations to meet EU import criteria.

The EU honey market requires imported honey to be certified that it is free from chemical, antibiotic and other residues. These residues are most likely to be present in honey due to the use of medicines to treat honeybee diseases, introduced during some form of honeybee management, or from environmental pollution. There is a further premium price available for organic certified honey, which is in strong demand within EU countries.

This demand for residue-free honey opens opportunities for honey producers in the poorest countries. In addition, it is often the most poor and most remote people of these countries, with few other livelihood options, who practise beekeeping. These people can harvest honey and beeswax that are of excellent quality, and especially now, because these products are residue-free, they can achieve good prices on western markets, if they are able to gain access. EU market access depends upon honey meeting EU import criteria.

In February 2002, the world honey market was strongly affected by an EU ban on Chinese honey, following the identification of antibiotics in samples of Chinese honey. Since China was Europe’s largest supplier of honey (107,000 tonnes in 2001), this immediately led to a shortage of honey meeting EU criteria, and honey prices increased rapidly. The prevailing market conditions present an ideal opportunity for small producer nations to get a toehold in the market, yet producer groups in developing countries remain unaware of the changing market situation and the potential sales available to them. The market gap left by China could have been filled by other developing countries if they were sufficiently informed and organised to do so. However, African honey is almost absent amongst EU honey imports, although large quantities of honey are produced by small-scale beekeepers in Africa. At the start of the Project (2003), only two African nations were able to conform with EU import requirements relating to antibiotic and other residues. These were Zambia and Tanzania.

This Workshop was organised to provide information to producer groups on how to organise a Residue Monitoring Plan. We hope that by providing the Workshop presentations here on this website, more people will be enabled to understand the procedure.

Please contact Bees for Development if you need assistance to prepare a Residue Monitoring Plan.

Residue Monitoring Plans
For a country to be eligible to export honey to the EU, it is essential for the nation’s name to be added to the EU’s list of ‘third countries’ eligible to do so. To achieve this it is necessary to show that ‘Residue Monitoring Plans are established for the analysis of honey for residues of antibiotics, sulphonamides, pesticides and heavy metals as defined in Decision 2001/159/EC and modified in 2001/487/EC. This legislation denies access to EU markets for most African countries, even though chemical residues are not a problem in African honey. Producer groups and relevant government departments need technical awareness on how to set up cost effective monitoring schemes to meet the standard required by the legislation. In smaller exporting countries these can take the form of an industry self-regulating scheme, organised and monitored by a competent authority acceptable to the EU. It is not necessary for each exporting country to have its own laboratory for authentication and certification: only to establish an acceptable protocol and procedure for taking honey samples and submitting them to EU-accredited labs.

Naturally-occurring antibiotics in honey
Early in 2003, a further complicating factor arose that posed a considerable additional hurdle in the race for African exports to gain certification: the detection of low levels of antibiotics in Zambian honey:

Zambian honey is already being imported into the EU. In January 2003, UK authorities found two samples of Zambian honey to contain trace levels of streptomycin. It is our belief that this low level of streptomycin must be occurring naturally within the Zambian honey, and credible evidence is needed to support this. If present in Zambian honey, it is extremely likely to occur also in other tropical African honeys.

At present honey with any detectable level of any antibiotic, including streptomycin, cannot be imported into the EU because no Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) has been set, even though streptomycin is permitted in other animal products and does not represent a public health issue. Thus, the prohibition arises solely because it is not in the commercial interest of any drug manufacturer to apply for an MRL for streptomycin in honey.

Until it can be shown that streptomycin can enter honey from natural sources in the environment it will be assumed that even low levels are the result of illegal medication of bees. However, as Streptomyces are naturally occurring filamentous bacteria, we believe that it should be possible to prove that the antibiotic is naturally occurring in the Zambian honey.

Bees for Development’s Project has endeavoured to prove that small amounts of antibiotic do occur naturally (and is therefore probably in other tropical African honeys). This is in many ways an important discovery that may have significant implications for the sector, and should necessitate changes in the EU legislation. It may also explain in part why African honey has long been regarded as a medicine, rather than a food, by many African societies.

Currently the EU states that antibiotic levels in honey must be zero. However some European traders, arguing that it is impossible to measure a zero presence, have been requesting that a minimum measurable level should be set, as is the case for other food stuffs. The levels of antibiotics found in the Zambian honey – that we believe to be naturally occurring – are only around 30 parts per billion, and far below EU permitted levels for antibiotics in milk and other foods. We are not aware of any other honey where antibiotic has been found to occur naturally. We believe that if the antibiotic can be shown to be naturally occurring, the EU will change honey standards accordingly, as has happened for the levels of other honey parameters when they have been shown to occur naturally (for example, levels of enzymes, water content, HMF, and other physical and chemical properties).

Resolving the issue of antibiotics occurring naturally in honey has been part of the process of helping African countries to comply with EU’s requirement for Residue Monitoring Plans.

  Download Dr Bradbear's PowerPoint presentation here (1.07mb .pps file)