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„I started bee keeping when I was still very young. It was a hobby. But later, after seeing the benefits i.e. the honey, then getting money from selling the honey, this motivated me to to scale it up so I can get more benefits. By the time I now received more skills and knowledge about bee keeping, particularly when I started working with honey processors, I realized I was actually far behind and I needed to move faster. This encouraged me to consider bee keeping very serious. So now, I’m motivated by the benefits I get from bee keeping.”
The Life as Beekeeper
Who belongs to your family / who is living with you?
My wife, my children and my grandchildren. Altogether we are six in the family.
How has bee farming changed your life?
Bee keeping changed my whole perception to farming, especially after understanding the role they play in farming – bees help a lot in pollination. Bees work almost 24 hours, more than me. They feed themselves, they do everything, but in the end, they give me food, and they give me money. So, in a way, I depend on bees. As a farmer, and more so, as a bee farmer, I thought I really needed to work harder than them. So, this changed my life as a farmer to work hard.
What does being a bee farmer mean to you?
As I said before, bees are useful to us as humans. But as a farmer, our crop yield depends a lot on bees doing the pollination. So, to me bee farming means helping many more farmers to realize good crop yield every time because that is what gives us food. This is very important to me and I
want to befriend the bees.
What is the most important thing in your life?
Farming is the most important thing in my life. Humans depend on food. Without food, there would be no life. So, if you don’t like farming, you would not have food.
What would you like to change in your life?
I want to move from a peasant farmer to a market-oriented farmer from whom many farm products can be got. I want to generate higher incomes. Of course knowledge is very important, so, I want to advance in knowledge and get to another level and eradicate poverty in my life.
What are your biggest challenges and
how do you plan to overcome them?
As a farmer, my biggest challenge in farming is climate change which affects farmers in many areas such as rainfall. We depend on weather patterns. Sometimes you plan but it may not work. However, you don’t give up. Sometimes you share ideas. But when things change, you also change and find a solution.
What do you do to enjoy yourself?
(Laughter………..) …. if you get benefits from what you do and you change the life of your dependents, there is food etc. , then you need to change your own life. It is actually bad to die poor. It’s not good to be a burden to people at your old age. You need to work hard and have your own money and resources. I enjoy my work, I enjoy what I do….
What would you do if you had one year off?
As farmers, ideally we don’t have leave. But as farmers, you can get your own leave. By proper planning you get leave. This gives you rest. But as farmers…..one year off……that means you are sick.
