Story: Apiradee Treerutkuarkul
Chumphon – A group of housewives and robusta coffee smallholders are boiling honeycomb with water. The other participants are laughing and having fun getting their hands dirty by smashing riped bananas and mixing it with yeast. It is the first time they learned that the scent of riped banana is similar to the bee pheromone and that it could attract a honeybee swarm. When the honeycomb and water is cool, they add in the yeast and banana. Keep the mixing for 15-30 days, then the beeswax pheromone is ready for use.
They are actually learning how to make bee pheromone, regarded as a fundamental skill of beekeeping during a beekeeping training recently held at Hongcharoen Land Reform Area in Chumphon Province, under the Coffee++ Thailand project. A total of 16 coffee smallholders joined this kick-off session. The aim is to build coffee smallholders’ capacities on regenerative agriculture and farming practices while improving their economic and environmental resilience. The fact that beekeeping does not require large areas to work with, female farmers can manage to do it as additional income while strengthening female empowerment to work together as a beekeeping group.
Beekeeping is considered an important aspect of regenerative agriculture. In tropical areas, bee and stingless bees are the principal pollinators of a diverse ecosystem, particularly for such a vast vacant land like Hongcharoen Land Reform Area. Once an oil palm plantation, it was recent that the Agricultural Land Reform Office managed to distribute the 1,000-hectare land to hundreds of farmer households lacking land for agricultural farming.
Each of farmers joining the one-day beekeeping session is granted a five-rai land plot to conduct agricultural farming. However, they face challenges of soil degradation and water scarcity. A lack of necessary infrastructure and climate change make them unable to improve agricultural productivity.
The aim of this capacity building training is to enable smallholder farmers who are Coffee++ Thailand project members, particularly female farmers to learn more in-depth about beekeeping, regarded as part of the regenerative agriculture and an eager to put knowledge and skills into practice to revive biodiversity while boosting their livelihoods.
Saowanee Choomee is one of the female farmers joining this one-day training session. This is the first year she could harvest robusta coffee after three years of growing.
It’s already 11am. Saowanee and her teenaged daughter are helping each other quickly pick up red coffee cherries before calling it a day. “Picking ripe coffee cherries off the branches is arduous work, but I feel proud that my hard work a few years back has paid off,” she said with smiles.
Saowanee manages her five-rai integrated farming land with her husband to grow not just only coffee trees but also other crops and vegetables for example cucumber, chili and tropical fruits including durian, mango, and banana, to ensure agricultural productivity all year round.
Due to lacking water resources, she admitted that the produces and the income were not yet sufficient and that beekeeping could be another hopeful source of income for her family members.
It is the first time she can learn how to conduct beekeeping especially bee luring techniques in every step from making bee pheromone, rubbing beeswax and burning the rubbed beeswax to strengthen the scent, and spraying pheromone made from riped sweet banana to finish up the process. Nestle Thailand as the project partner contributed the beehives for all coffee smallholders to start experimenting the beekeeping.
Three months on, a colony of bees has established itself in a wooden pallet and she looks forward to collecting honey and other byproducts in coming months.
Weerinpat Janewatanakul, Coffee++ Thailand Project Manager, said capacity development activities are based on new as well as proven approaches such as good agricultural practices, regenerative agriculture, farmer business school, agroforestry practices and the strengthening of farmers’ organisations. By building strategic partnerships with public and private sectors and civil society, the project aims to amplify the developmental benefits beyond the scope of the project. “We encourage farmers to improve not only income and biodiversity in coffee farm by introducing beekeeping for more sustainable and productive agricultural system. The activity also promotes female farmers to set up beekeeping group for’ role in agricultural sector by setting up a beekeeping group for strengthening female empowerment and their role in the agricultural sector,” she said.
The project will continue monitoring the progress of beekeeping among the farmers until completion of the project by the end of year 2025. ■
Related Publications
Photo Gallery
