Landless farmers making dividends from bee-keeping
Hailing from Badal village, Pardeep Kumar, a landless progressive farmer is making a killing through bee-keeping. He is earning Rs 25 lakh from it and has about 400 boxes for the purpose.
Hailing from Badal village, Pardeep Kumar, a landless progressive farmer is making a killing through bee-keeping. He is earning Rs 25 lakh from it and has about 400 boxes for the purpose.
Badal village has formed a co-operative society of bee keepers that has about 500 members to date and is making a turnover of about Rs 1.25 crore. The co-operative society is looking forward to take the membership to about 2,000 bee keepers.
“There is great demand for honey, especially abroad. We are working towards expanding the market. As of now, the society members are selling honey to Markfed, while a few are even exporting,” added Pardeep.
The society is exporting bee to Europe, Argentina and the US. “Standards abroad are quite strict and we get the honey tested before exporting it,” added Pardeep. A progressive farmer from Hoshiarpur, Kulwant Singh, who was instrumental in getting the ambitious project approved, said, “Farmers committing suicide are the ones whose only source of income is land. There is need to push for crop diversification and ensuring development of processing industry that is need of the hour.” A PKVC patron, Dr GS Kalkat, said, “The PKVC initiative of the state government will go a long way in putting our dwindling agriculture economy on strong pedestal. The chamber, in close coordination with PAU, will give far better extension services to motivate the farmers for adopting new farm practices on scientific lines.”