This project will train and empower 50 youths to protect and promote the health of honeybees through sustainable beekeeping and ecological farming. It will address how pesticides are used, and how poverty, food insecurity and lack of biodiversity act as active contributors to the disappearance of honeybees. This will focus on inculcating the values of environmental protection and management in the youths of Batibo, Cameroon and provide a platform to share best practices and advocate for bees.
Pollinators like native honeybees, and other flying insects have been killed off by insecticides and habitat loss, which cause lower crop yields that lead to poverty, hunger and migration. Unemployment among youths is high and farmers are ignorant on the impact of their activities to pollinators and the environment. Recently beekeepers have observed the mysterious and sudden death and disappearance of bees as well as high rates of decline in honeybee colonies due to usustainable practices.
This project will create awareness, boost local campaigns against bee harming pesticides and train 50 youths on sustainable beekeeping and ecological farming practices. The youths will work together in local farmer-to-farmer teams to implement these practices; nurse and plant 5000 bee loving trees and create 50 bee farm enterprises that will benefit approximately 500 farmers who will share this knowledge and skills with hundreds of school children and other farmers in nearby villages of Batibo
The project will provide additional income to 50 youths and empower them to protect the health of pollinators (native honeybees) and conserve the environment by bringing the knowledge and practices of pollinator restoration and conservation agriculture to thousands of farmers and youths throughout Batibo sub-division. The benefits to agroecosytem resilience, sustainable yields and ecosystem services will be regional in scope.
