Despite donors injecting approx. $1billion/year via NGOs, farming in Malawi has for many years been subsistence. Poor collection techniques in the honey industry are causing product wastage and destruction of bee-hives. Bee keepers lack access to modern hives, reliable & profitable markets, extension services and own funding. We will optimize honey value chain to procure & process quality organic products. 1000 youth farmers will be linked to commercial markets via cooperatives & innovation fund
Our rapid assessment validates that low production and quality due to use of traditional methods and tools, non-existence traceability systems and lack of certification standards leads to limited market competitiveness of Malawi honey. This has resulted in failure of communities to yield benefits from commercialized honey markets. Uncoordinated market systems, limited skills & financial capital are constraints on small-scale farmers to become active players in honey product value chains (VC).
Through cooperative business approach, this project is designed to increase farmers' income from honey VC, create more jobs for the youth (via honey hubs) & women in the honey value chain and establish a sustainable and legitimate multi-stakeholder honey VC in transaction platform at district and then national level. The cooperative will set up business innovation fund to be run as a trust owned by farmers & stakeholders. The fund will provide business growth loans & share-equity capital
The project will offer high quality organic honey while producing triple bottom line social, economic and environmental impacts. It will work across the value chain from production to consumption to ensure sustainability. We will source honey from independent smallholder beekeepers, package and process it in factory hubs and then distribute it across the country. Given the high level of youth unemployment in Malawi, we will create employment & entrepreneurship opportunities for the rural youth
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).