PACJA-supported project to lower climate-induced wildlife, farmers’ conflicts

The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance held the first training session of the apiculture farming among farmers in Eastern Kenya.

The training is the first of its kind and is to be scaled up along arid and semi-arid regions of Africa where wildlife-people conflicts is a problem as well as empower and help build resilience of women and youth in areas hardest hit by climate crisis.

According to the James Kanyi, the project lead of the Tijiunue Tena Project, a locally-led climate action project in PACJA said apiculture is bee keeping farming which is being embraced in areas where food crops don’t thrive due to minimal rains!

“PACJA is spearheading the use of bees to minimize wildlife\farmer conflicts particularly in areas that are drought-prone,” he said.

In the first session of the training, 50 representatives from 10 groups were trained and the same are also expected to go and train their fellow villagers. 

Beatrice Kagwira, a farmer and beneficiary from the training said at last, there is hope. “Since growing up as a child in my village in Kiutine, rarely has our village been harvesting crops. We farm but animals, particularly elephants often come and wipe out our crops. But with the integration of bee farming, am convinced that animals will be kept out of our farms,” she said.

Lawrence Mbaabu on the other hand noted that the integration of bee farming will raise his income. “Depending only on crop farming has proved tricky in our semi-arid area. But with bees, we will be assured of additional income even if our crops do not do well,” he said.

Kanyi said the climate crisis has meant that people think out of the box and offer farmers workable solutions within their limitations.

According to Kanyi, bee keeping (Apiculture) is low in terms of initial cost outlay in that it requires low start-up capital, land and labor.

Globally, the demand for honey is insatiable. In Kenya, for instance, a kilogram of honey fetches almost ten times a liter of oil. (That is; Ksh. 800-Ksh (8 US$) to 1000 (10US$) as compared to Ksh120 (US$1.2) for a litre of petrol.

According to the US department of Agriculture, in 2013, the country imported a paltry 3000 Kgs of honey worth US$ 15,000 from Kenya.  Indeed, fast increases in the price of honey combined with flagging global volumes spell a promising outlook for producers who can scale up their volumes.

Additionally, Kanyi added that bee keeping enhances the environment through pollination hence increasing the crops yields and ecological regeneration.

“There is a direct link between honey production and environmental conservation since bees require trees for shade, nectar, propolis and shelter. On the other hand, trees and crops need bees for sexual reproduction (pollination). This link has seen most bee keepers turn into environmental conservationists in order to boost their honey yields,” he noted.

Recent studies have linked bees with addressing the human-wildlife conflict. Where hives are lined along the boundaries of game parks and reserves such as the Meru National Park where these farmers hail from, bees create a buffer zone where elephants are prevented from accessing the farms.

This has been seen as a sustainable and long-term solution to animal-human conflict along the wildlife conservation areas.