Beekeeping to help drought-prone communities in Somaliland

Rural people are dependant on livestock, yet 70% of the country’s animals have perished in the last five years. Thousands of families are reliant on food aid. It may seem an unlikely environment for honey production – but honey bees are immensely resilient and will do well wherever there is some flowering vegetation. With short rainy and flowering seasons Somaliland may never be a world-beater when it comes to honey harvests, but it does not have to. Two million people live in the country’s capital Hargeisa and if half of these people consumed just 5 kilos of honey each year, that represents a local demand for honey of 5,000 tonnes a year. Most consumers would prefer to buy local honey, rather than having to rely on imports as they do at present. A 5,000 tonnes deficit could potentially provide 100,000 rural people with an extra source of much-needed income. There is however a problem – traditional beekeeping has all but disappeared from Somaliland. The reason for the decline is hard to understand – but is probably due to a decline in availability of the materials which people used to use to make hives and a lack of appreciation of the business opportunity offered by small-scale beekeeping.

We are working to change this and are now working in Arbsiyo in the Gabiley Region of Somaliland, with women and men from impoverished families. We are working with implementing partner, the Advocacy Capacity Development Foundation (ACDF), a local NGO based on Hargeisa. This project is designed to directly support small scale agricultural activity in Somaliland and will help poor households earn new income from beekeeping and selling honey and beeswax.

Our partner, Abdikarim Abdi Adan from ACDF explained to us the urgent need for this project. He explained that the rural population in Somaliland are faced with frequent droughts and food shortages, and this vulnerability is one of the reasons why Somaliland is one of the poorest countries in the world. Abdi engaged in community consultations in Arbsiyo and consulted with government officials and companies currently importing honey to Somaliland. He learned that farmers have some knowledge of bees, but do not know how to fully develop the potential of beekeeping as a business and do not know how to meet the market expectations of honey retail companies. Somaliland is a drought-prone country and livelihood diversification, such as beekeeping, is an integral part of the government’s drought risk mitigation strategy. There is both local demand for honey and insufficient supply. Beekeeping is low-risk activity, and once new beekeepers have the knowledge and skills to keep bees and harvest honey, the activity does not demand frequent re-injection of capital, bees do not require feeding and if colonies are lost (for example they sometimes move away during a prolonged drought) beekeepers are able to re-stock from the wild population for free.

Beekeeping offers a means to generate cash without a high level of capital investment, and the money earned can be used to invest in other income-generating activities, and so even a relatively small income from beekeeping (£50 to £100) can form the foundation leading to economic empowerment and security.