Livelihoods for the landless

In Amhara, Ethiopia, rural families rely on farming and livestock keeping for food and for income – and this means land. Yet agricultural land is becoming scarce and fragmented. In Amhara no land redistribution has happened within the last 20 years, meaning many young people are unable to acquire land. This growing population of – mainly young – landless people depends on casual labouring, crop-sharing and the sale of charcoal to make ends meet. The landless spend a significant proportion of their income on renting land and buying food, and food insecurity is an ever-present concern. One study showed that rural landless households face food shortages for about four consecutive months in year where adults eat less than two times a day, and children less than three times a day (*Ayalew 2017). Poverty, hunger, exploitation, insecurity and migration are the major consequences of landlessness. There is an urgent need for young people in rural areas to build sustainable livelihoods that are less-reliant on land. This is where beekeeping is so valuable.

The objective of our project Building resilient livelihoods for landless youth through beekeeping is to help landless people escape from poverty by earning new income through beekeeping and associated enterprises. Bee colonies are typically kept in small apiaries near to people’s houses, taking up no more land than the footprint of the hives themselves. The bees know no boundaries and forage far and wide on crop land belonging to other people, on communal land and in forests and woodlots. Honey is sold ‘in the raw’ as honey comb and fetches high prices in town markets.

Working with our partner Bees for Development Ethiopia we have developed a Lead Beekeeper – Follower model of training and support. Lead Beekeepers are those who have already received beekeeping training from Bees for Development Ethiopia, have achieved a good standard of beekeeping and are able to manage their own apiaries independently. 48 Lead Beekeepers have been selected based on their interest in and commitment to beekeeping and a willingness to mentor Followers – or learner beekeepers – in their own communities. Each Lead Beekeeper is mentoring two Followers.

The Lead Beekeepers have received training in colony splitting – a new skill – and they use this method to expand their number of colonies, in addition to swarm capture. Both methods are useful. Swarm capture is easy to do and takes less time, whilst the advantage of colony splitting is that it is possible to choose the ‘best’ bees to multiply. Enterprise planning training is another important component to the project. Lead Beekeepers were invited to participate in an Enterprise Challenge Scheme by submitting ideas about how they could diversify their beekeeping activities to make more money. Those with the best ideas were rewarded with cash prizes. Some of the business ideas included making and selling top-bars, splitting colonies and selling bees, making beeswax candles and making bee veils for sale.

In addition to learning beekeeping skills from the Lead Beekeepers, the Followers also worked to establish their own apiaries at home – and that involved not only making and setting hives, but also getting bees. They relied on their Lead Beekeepers to help them in this also. The Lead Beekeepers helped the Followers to obtain their very first bee colony. The real strength in the Lead Beekeeper – Follower approach is that the Followers are able to access advice and tuition little and often and on an as-needed basis. Beekeeping is a seasonal activity and the best way to learn how to catch a swarm is when there are swarms to be caught. This type of instruction is hard to do in a classroom and impossible to engineer to a strict timetable. Bees swarm when they want to swarm and Followers need someone on hand to shout ‘let’s go’ at a time of the bees’ choosing!

For people new to beekeeping (and indeed for all beekeepers perhaps!) the most exciting time of the year is the honey harvest. After their first full season as new beekeepers 80% of Followers harvested honey of between 5 to 35 kilos each in December 2019. All 96 Followers had one bee colony and just over half had two or more, meaning they are well on the way to establishing productive and flourishing beekeeping businesses.

In the local market, clean, ripe unprocessed honey comb can fetch up to US4 dollars a kilo. Many of the people supported by Bees for Development earn no more than US200 a year in cash. A 5 kilo harvest represents a 10% increase income – a 35 kilo harvest a 70% increase! New beekeepers reported spending their new income on house repairs, clothes for their children, livestock and more bees.

Earlier this year the Lead Beekeepers exhibited their honey in a local showcasing event to share their achievements. A team of elders participated as referees to award the best quality and the best taste of honey among the contestants.

Lead Beekeeper, Netsanet, shared her feedback, “The local honey show helped to show our quality honey to our community. Therefore, they are now inspired by our work and they now show interest to begin beekeeping. And I would like to suggest the project to conduct same activity with more participants to promote our work. The activity also benefits me to get some money as I won a prize for the best tasting honey. With this I can expand my beekeeping and gives me confidence in my products”.

This work is making a substantial difference to the lives of very poor people in Amhara, including people like Wubnesh Kindu, a young woman with big ambitions but limited opportunities. This is her story:

“Before the Project I had nothing to do. I had dropped out from my grade 8 class because my family could not afford the cost of secondary school. I felt like I was wasting my life living at my family’s home with no future. I have been assisting my Mum, taking care of my younger siblings and working as a casual farm labourer – just like many other women in our village. I had no idea what work to do for a living. I had no money and no one to help me even though I was ready to work hard and apply myself to changing my life. I needed a chance. Beekeeping has given me that chance”.

This project is supported through funding from UK Aid Direct through the Small Charities Challenge Fund grant.