Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister launches the project on the occasion of World Bee Day
On the occasion of World Bee Day and in the auspicious context of the ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’, Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched the project of setting up a honey testing laboratory at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa, New Delhi.
A regional honey quality testing laboratory will be established at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) for quality testing of honey and other products of beekeeping under the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission.
Tomar said that the production of honey is increasing in the country and its export is also going up. Efforts are also being made for good quality honey. Small and medium scale farmers should come forward to take up this work so that their income can be increased.
Rs 300 crore has been approved for the overall promotion of National Beekeeping & Honey Mission (NBHM), development of scientific beekeeping and achieving the target of ’sweet revolution’. Besides, Rs 500 crore has been allocated to NBHM by the Centre under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Campaign. A world-class state-of-the-art Honey Testing Lab has been established at National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), Anand at a cost of Rs 5 crore.
Two more regional/big testing laboratories have been sanctioned with an amount of Rs 8 crore each for honey and other products of beekeeping. Aiming at the development of this sector, 13 mini/satellite district level laboratories for honey and other products of beekeeping and projects related to online registration and development of traceability sources of honey and other products and other important projects have also been approved. The Madhu Kranti portal for online registration and traceability system to track the source of honey and other bee products has also been launched two months ago.
The Union Minister mentioned that steps have also been initiated for the making of FPOs of beekeepers along with other efforts to promote scientific beekeeping. A total of 10,000 FPOs will be set up across the country.
Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Parshottam Rupala, Secretary Sanjay Agarwal, Director General of ICAR Dr Trilochan Mohapatra also expressed their views. Additional Secretary Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, Agriculture Commissioner Dr SK Malhotra, Dr Ashok Kumar Singh, Director, IARI, ED of NBB Dr BL Saraswat and other officials of the honey mission and the farmer brothers and sisters associated with honey production joined the programme virtually.
