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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Quality Focused Apiculture Sector Value Chain Development in Ethiopia
Author(s)
Negash Bekena and Juergen Greiling
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DOI:10.17265/2161-6256/2017.02.005
Affiliation(s)
Ethiopian Apiculture Board, P.O. Box 2307, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
ABSTRACT
Ethiopia is an “apiculture country” with more than 10 million honey bee
colonies. Ethiopia is also a “honey country”; the annual honey and beeswax production potentials are 550,000 and
50,000 metric tons, respectively, with about one tenth actually produced. Since
2008, Ethiopia is EU “third country” listed for the export of honey. However, the
national research system identified serious bottlenecks, such as traditional smallholder level production with
very low productivity and problematic supply chain; quality issues, including
adulteration; lack of access to credit; constrained input supply chain and input quality
issues. This paper illustrates how quality defects have been addressed in a
quality focused value chain development (VCD) approach, with focus on: creating
a favorable policy ground; implementing regional, national and continental multi-stakeholder-platforms
(MSPs) for dialogue; information and knowledge sharing and sector advocacy;
strengthening supportive sector organizations along the value chain; networking
and market intelligence, including exposition
and conference
organization; expansion of research centers and activities; laboratory qualification for
international accreditation. Many components are implemented through the
largest national apiculture sector development
programme called Apiculture Scaling-Up Programme for Income and
Rural Employment (ASPIRE), which transfers
innovations to more than 30,000 beekeepers. Among others, ASPIRE was
instrumental in qualifying national testing facilities, which in turn led to product quality improvement. However, more action
is required in the fields of business-to-business (B2B)
linkages, research, education
and training, as well as in making so far voluntary
practices mandatory. This also calls for full traceability
and routine quality testing along the value chain.
KEYWORDS
Ethiopia, apiculture value chain development, product quality.
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