The Guyana School of Agriculture on Monday facilitated the 9th Biennial Caribbean Bee-keepers Congress with emphasis being placed on the difficulties facing the sector and ways to improve honey production in Guyana.
Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder presented the feature address where he asserted that regional integration is crucial in providing solutions.
“Collaborative actions, greater coordination and regional integration are required to concrete outputs in the short and medium term. Our local in the industry is considered to be a small scale developing industry. Therefore, bee legislation and and honey regulations are basic necessities for this industry to be expanded,” said Holder.
Meanwhile, Safrana Cameron, an economist attached to the Business Ministry also spoke about the difficulties in the bee-keeping industry thus explaining that honey demand is greater than production hence the prices will skyrocket.
“The amount of honey that we produce in Guyana is not enough to match with our demand and when you put market forces together, as demands rises and you able to supply below that demand, prices for that commodity goes up,” said Cameron.
The congress is opened from November 19 to 23 under the theme: “Natural Bee-keeping for a green economy”.
In September, Trinidad and Tobago’s (T&T) Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley had noted that his country is looking into the 80-year-old law which restricts Guyana from transshipping honey exports through the twin-island nation. The 1935 T&T law prohibits the transportation of honey within one mile of the country.
In fact, back in 2015, Laparkan was fined US$3000 by Trinidad and Tobago’s customs for facilitating the shipment of honey.
