MIEL MAYA HONING
Benoît Olivier, Miel Maya Honing, Belgium

TOPICS
Experiences of promoting Fairtrade honey in terms of support to producers and encouraging consumer demand.

SUMMARY

• MFT and MMH
• MMH as NGO
• MMH’s future and Africa
• Support to the producers
  - Projects
  - Consultancy
• Promoting demand and educational work.

MFT AND MMH:TWO SEPARATE ORGANIZATIONS?

• 1975 – 1997: only one organization;
• 1997: splitting in two entities, the NGO and the trade organisation;
• 2006: MFT and MMH have different staff, different board, different place.
• Trend: professionalism; separate tasks. How far?

A BRIDGE BETWEEN MFT AND MMH

• Exception: MFT subcontracts MMH about the relationship with its providers
  in Guatemala;
• To keep a « bridge » between both activities allows to make:
  - the trade organisation more conscious about the context of its providers;
  - the NGO sensitive to the importance to give outlets to the producers, and
    the difficulties to gain this outlets.

MMH AS A NGO

Two ranges of activities:

• supporting beekeeping projects in the South (now: only Mexico
  and Guatemala);
• educational work in Belgium to promote the concept of Fair Trade.

BUDGET

2007 budget:

• 97.000 Euros for beekeeping projects;
• 153.000 Euros for educational work.

Total amount = 250.000 Euros: 75% is financed by the Belgian government.

MFT grants 25% of projects.

MMH looks for 25% of educational work.

MMH’S FUTURE

1st May 2007:

• presentation to the Belgian government of our next Program: 2008 – 2013;
• two periods:

- 2008 – 2010;
- 2011 – 2013

Only the first period will be detailed on 1/5/07.

WHAT ABOUT AFRICA?

• 2008 – 2010: to develop experience and knowledge about African beekeeping and African organisations of beekeepers (activity: consultancy);
• 2008 – 2010: consultancy, but also possibility of supporting projects in Africa.

MMH AND THE SUPPORT TO PRODUCERS

• What can MMH offer?
• What MMH cannot offer?

WHAT WE CANNOT OFFER

• We are not technicians in beekeeping.
• We know a lot about it, but we have no hives ourselves!

WHAT WE CAN OFFER

• MMH tries to get a global vision of how beekeeping can provide a valuable source of income for small-scale producers.
• Mostly development issues and trade issues are separate: we try to combine both aspects.

SCHEME

• Our scheme integrates Production, Trading, Organisation, Social Impact. We support any initiative which is part of this scheme.
• This scheme is based on our experience in Latin America. Perhaps it will have to be adapted for Africa.

PRODUCTION

Technical assistance to improve:

• total quantity of hives (levels: organization and producers);
• number of hives/beekeeper;
• output/hive;
• quality;
• diversification of products (wax; pollen; propolis).

Fund of micro-credit:

• equipment of the beekeeper: veil, overall, gloves, etc.;
• hives etc.;
• extractor, etc.

TRADE

• Analyse costs: no to claim higher prices, but to reduce costs;
• Ideal: reducing costs by investments in common. 
• Export is not the only way!
• Local sales; diversification of products.

Training about export:

• the beekeepers have to be able to control the person in charge of it (often, the manager is not a beekeeper).

ORGANIZATION

• Democracy and participation of the beekeepers in their organization
• It means: rights, but also duties, responsibilities and discipline.
• What about Africa? We cannot support a project with individual beekeepers.

SOCIAL IMPACT

• Our aim is not to create a club of privileged beekeepers ("happy few")
• First social impact is on the family
• Second impact is on the community
• Third impact: on the local development (the dream of every donor).

TWO ORIENTATIONS FOR OUR NEXT PROGRAM

• To help new (small) beekeeper organisations to meet the FLO standards;
  (nowadays, who is working in that field??)
• To help organisations already in the FLO register to develop, especially the most vulnerable of them.

REFLECTION

• In general terms, nowadays, the risk is that the Fairtrade movement moves only towards strong organisations, the only ones capable to meet the requirements of the super-markets.
• The mission of MMH is to pay more attention to the small peasants, who are the people for whom the Fair Trade movement was started 30 years ago, long before the creation of the labels Max Havelaar / Fair Trade.

CONSULTANCY (beginning)

• Consultancy is a completely new activity for MMH
• First experience was a mission to Burkina-Faso, in July 2006.

Purpose: to visit a beekeeping project supported by another Belgian NGO.

PROMOTING DEMAND

• The Belgian authorities finance educational work of MMH, not advertisement for MFT!
• So this educational work is not exactly aimed to promote market demand in the short term.

EDUCATIONAL WORK

• To present and explain the Fair Trade concept to new public (in an open way, critical and not only focused on the Maya products)
• To make the consumer more conscious about the issues of Fair Trade
• To promote a change in the mentality and behaviour of the consumer, with respect to countries of the 'South'

So this educational work looks for impact in the long term.

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

• Publications: folder, periodical, website, books
• Information and training in the schools
• Pedagogic tools (jeu de rôles)

  Download Benoît Olivier's PowerPoint presentation here (5.37mb .pps file)