• Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena launched the country’s first ‘Mobile Honey Processing Van’ at Sirora village in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. 

• The mobile van has been designed in-house by KVIC at its Multi-disciplinary Training Centre, Panjokhra, at a cost of Rs 15 lakh. 

• This mobile honey processing unit can process up to 300 kg of honey in 8 hours.

• The van is also equipped with a testing laboratory that would examine the quality of honey.

• Besides reducing the honey extraction and processing cost to the beekeepers, it will also eliminate any scope for adulteration of honey.

• It is likely to benefit the beekeepers in rural areas of states like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan.

• The honey processing van will move to different apiaries in these states where beekeepers will be able to get their honey processed at nominal charges that too at their doorsteps. 

• Based on the experience of the pilot project, more such mobile honey processing units, particularly in the northeast states, will be rolled out.

• The Mobile Honey Processing Van comes as a major development under KVIC’s Honey Mission.

National Beekeeping and Honey Mission

• Following the call for a ‘Sweet Revolution’ by PM Narendra Modi in 2017, the government has been encouraging large numbers of farmers for production and marketing of honey and to earn more profit in agriculture.

• National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM) is a central sector scheme for overall promotion and development of scientific beekeeping and production of quality honey and other beehive products. 

• It is implemented through the National Bee Board as a central sector scheme (100 per cent funded by central government). 

It has three Mini Missions:

1) Mini Mission-I: Under this Mission, thrust will be given on production and productivity improvement of various crops through pollination assisted by adoption of scientific beekeeping.

2) Mini Mission-II: This Mission will concentrate on post harvest management of beekeeping/ beehive products including collection, processing, storage, marketing, value addition, etc with a thrust to develop requisite infrastructural facilities for these activities.

3) Mini Mission-III: This Mission will concentrate on research & technology generation for different regions/states/agro-climatic and socio-economic conditions.

Objectives of NBHM: 

• Promoting holistic growth of the beekeeping industry for income and employment generation, providing livelihood support to farm and non-farm households and to enhance agriculture/ horticulture production.

• Developing additional infrastructural facilities for developing quality nucleus stock of honey bees, multiplication of stock by bee breeders, setting up of disease diagnostic labs, beekeeping equipment manufacturing units, post-harvest and marketing infrastructures including quality control labs individually as well as by setting up of Integrated Beekeeping Development Centres (IBDCs)/ Centres of Excellence (CoEs) on Beekeeping.

• To promote, develop and disseminate latest and state-of-the-art technologies and skill development in the beekeeping industry for production of honey and other high value beehive products.

• Empowerment of women through beekeeping. 

• To maximise, economic, ecological and social benefits by diversification through beekeeping by production of higher quantity and good quality honey and other high value beehive products, such as bee wax, bee pollen, propolis, royal jelly, comb honey, bee venom, etc for domestic and export market.

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