By MAIMBOLWA MULIKELELA –

ZAMBIA’s total honey production in 2014 increased by 250,000 tonnes to one million tonnes.
ZHC programme manager Macdonald Kayuuna said in 2014 the industry produced one million tonnes of honey compared to the 750,000 tonnes produced the previous year.
In an interview in Lusaka yesterday, Mr Kayuuna said the industry was able to achieve remarkable growth in terms of production despite various limitations in accessing some of the districts.
ZHC is currently servicing areas such as North-western Province which is the leading honey producer in the country, Central, Western and parts of Eastern and Southern Provinces.
“Our plans for this year will be to capture districts in SouthernProvince, namely Choma and Kalomo. We also want to go to Northern, Luapula, Lusaka and Muchinga Provinces if our cooperating partners will allow us to do so,” he said.
Mr Kayuuna said the industry anticipate to increase its production levels from last year’s one million tonnes to about 1.5 million tonnes of honey this year.
He said this can only be achieved if Northern, Luapula and Muchinga and Southern Provinces are fully involved.
“Our aim is to ensure that we bring on board three to four districts this year and we project to increase our production to at least 1.5 million tonnes of honey in 2015,” he said.
Mr Kayuuna said most of the beekeepers in these areas appeared not to be deriving the maximum benefits from the honey industry due to lack of knowledge about the honey markets.
ZHC represents the interests of players in the honey industry, such as beekeepers, honey buyers, processors, packers and exporters.
The council has around 4,500 members and Mr Kayuuna said despite the honey sector’s potential, the contribution of honey towards the country’s total export revenue was still insignificant.
In 2010, the sector accounted for less than 0.01 per cent of the country’s total export earnings.
“We are just exporting a bit into South Africa and Europe because the large part of our honey is locally consumed. It is important to note that we are not able to meet the national consumption of honey,” Mr Kayuuna said.