At a village near the Ludhawi toll plaza, about 10 km from Bharatpur and on NH 11 that goes from Agra to Bikaner , I meet Jagan Singh — a farmer, a vaid (practitioner of traditional medicine), and now a beekeeper. His father was a farmer and vaid too, but finding it difficult to make ends meet, he opted for a novel income generating campaign in 1998 in his district targeted at low-income villagers like him. It offered training in beekeeping and promised assured returns. He was then earning barely Rs 3,000.
Today his turnover is Rs 50,000 from 400 boxes. Each bee box costs Rs 3,500, and gives 50 kg of honey every year. Singh sells the raw honey produced for Rs 80-100 a kg to exporters like Kashmir Aviery (in Punjab) or Kejiwals (Delhi).
But if he can process, pack, brand and export his produce, his income — which is around Rs 25,000 a month — can go up substantially. “I am now thinking of putting up a processing plant,” he says. Depending on the size, he says, honey processing plants cost between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 2 crore. He would, of course, begin small.
So, does he have the money? “No, but I can easily get a bank loan,” Singh says confidently.
A tough beginning
At this point, Bhim Singh, Principal Project Coordinator of the Lupin Human Welfare and Research Foundation, Bharatpur, which is running a successful programme to increase and improve rural livelihoods, intervenes. “Today he says he will go in for a Rs 10 lakh bank loan with so much confidence. But very few of these beekeepers remember how hard we had to fight for the first loan from the Central Bank of India in 1998. I even had to threaten the bank manager that ‘we will file a case against you’.”
Singh adds that for the first year he was the only one to produce honey in his village, but now seven other farmers have joined him. As mustard is the main crop in this district — about 2 lakh hectares are under mustard cultivation in Bharatpur — the bees get their nectar mostly from mustard flowers. But the boxes are migrated seasonally to get different flavours — during the leechi season they go to Uttar Pradesh (to Aligharh, Mathura and Dehra Dun). Neem honey, with medicinal properties, is also made here.
Creamy honey
Bhim Singh says mustard honey, which is very creamy and thick is also known as “creamy honey”, and as it sets well, it is ideal for bakery products. “There is a big demand for mustard honey in Germany where it is also used in chocolate mix. Germans are big consumers of honey, which is very healthy compared to sugar, jo haddiyo ko galata hei (melts the bones).” German per capita consumption of honey is 4–5 kg, compared to a pathetic 8–10 gm in India.”
Bhim Singh says that in this belt, about 1,250 tonnes of honey is produced every year, and “directly and indirectly our honey-producing ventures — in which not only farmers but also uneducated, illiterate youth have been trained and involed — contribute about Rs 20-25 crore to the economy. Half of this comes from the raw honey (Rs 100 a kg), and the rest from the wooden boxes, iron tools and labour required to make and maintain them, extract honey, packaging, transporting the boxes as well honey to the exporting companies and related work.”
A big success story has been that of Brij Health Care, which produces and processes honey acquired from other beekeepers, and packages and exports 150-200 kg of honey to the US, Europe and the UAE.
The Foundation trains youth and helps them get bank loans of about Rs 40,000. Once that is returned, they get newer and larger loans. “One box can give around 50 kg of honey, and one who keeps 50 boxes can easily get a monthly income of Rs 25,000,” he adds.
Sita Ram Gupta, Executive Director of the Lupin Foundation, says apart from asking for a State Bee Board to be put up here, along the lines of the national body, “We are also asking the Government to include honey in the daily diet of the local children through the mid-day meal scheme. Honey is a very healthy and nutritional product, and we want our children to benefit from the hard work put in by the farmers in these villages.” Some of the honey is processed, packaged and sold under the ‘Madhvi’ brand.
Bhim Singh recalls that in 1997-98, when they launched the beekeeping programme, there was scepticism that it would flop. An earlier effort was recalled and “they said that had flopped and all the bees flew away. But I stood guarantee for the first Rs 40,000 which was invested and said, ‘If this money doesn’t get returns you can cut it from my salary’.” He even loaned Rs 10,000 to a farmer. “Later when he came home to return the money, my mother, thinking it was some kind of bribe refused to accept it! Abhi bhi merey paanch dabbey yaha chalet hei … (my five boxes are producing honey). I refuse to take the profits!”
The Foundation has also helped many farmers set up small dairy units by training and getting them loans — and the farmers are getting Rs 24-25 for a litre of milk.
Sohan Singh (60) grows wheat and millets on the 1.5 hectares he owns; “I was barely able to get two square meals for my family. Today, there is nothing for the kisan in agriculture; we don’t even recover our input costs.” But six years ago, he was encouraged to go in for milch animals. After getting help with both training and loans, today he owns 15 cows and buffaloes which give him 60 litres of milk. This he sells to the Rajasthan State co-operative dairy. His monthly income now fluctuates between Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000. He uses the biogas produced from gobar for both cooking and lighting, and the slurry from biogas as organic manure for his farm.
“There are several such stories in these villages; we are proud to have made some of these villages a land of milk and honey,” beams Bhim Singh.
An IAS sting!
But his best story is related to the first major beekeeping programme that was launched in 1998. Several hundred people had gathered , and while the shor-sharaba was on, a worried government flunkey told that the chief guest, the Director of Agriculture, an IAS officer (a very senior bureaucrat in the Rajasthan government now) had been stung in the ear by a bee and he was livid.
Thinking on his feet, Singh ran up to the bureaucrat and said, “Sir, don’t worry, now that you’ve been stung by a bee, you’ll never get joint pain, particularly knee pain.” The man was so happy to hear this that he was ready to proffer the other ear too to for a bee sting! After a while, when the pain abated, with typical IAS hubris, the man said: “That must have been a hell of an intelligent bee… among several hundred people, it could identify the most important man!”