A world class, State of Art Honey Testing Laboratory established by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in Anand (Gujarat) with support of the National Bee Board (NBB) was inaugurated.
Honey Testing Laboratory
It aims to realize the vision to bring a sweet revolution in the country by encouraging a large number of famers for production and marketing of honey and earn more profit in agriculture. The government aims to increase the income of farmers and the bee-keeping enterprise has to play a major role in supplementing the income of farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture has taken up several activities to promote beekeeping under ‘Mission on Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH)’, ‘National Mission for beekeeping’ being implemented through the National Bee Board and the States. Increasing bee colonies, honey bee production, processing, marketing and export would significantly contribute to GDP and boost the rural economy.
Adulteration is a major problem in honey production and honey is being adulterated with high fructose corn syrup or rice, tapioca, sugarcane and beet syrup that are cheaper and resemble honey in physico-chemical properties. The establishment of this laboratory will help for quality production of honey and its export to other countries. Based on the parameters notified by FSSAI, the NDDB has set-up this world class lab with all the facilities and developed the test methods/protocols, which have been accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL). FSSAI has now notified new standards of Honey, Bee wax and Royal Jelly.
National Beekeeping Honey Mission
The Government of India has approved a new Central Sector Scheme entitled “National Beekeeping & Honey Mission (NBHM)” for 2 years for overall promotion and development of scientific beekeeping in mission mode to achieve the goal of “Sweet Revolution”. India is one of the major exporters of honey in the world. There are 3 lakh employees extracting about 94,500 Metric tonnes of honey from 30 lakh bee colonies in India.
Objectives of the Mission
- Constructing land with a feasible natural environment and economy that will help the beekeepers be independent.
- Implementing harmless apiculture technologies
- Grabbing the global market’s attention and competing with them in beekeeping and honey production.
- Sketching a long-term plan for fostering and development of honey.
- Improving the cultivation of food products through cross-pollination.
- Encouraging scientific beekeeping management practices by incorporating awareness and training to enhance the beekeeper’s skill and knowledge.
- Collaborating with the Government to implement the scientific methods by regulating the policies.
- Studying and developing protocols for best practices on all the features of beekeeping.
- Strengthening the market for beekeeping products across national and International borders.
