Apr 7, 2021
Imam Din said that efforts are on to adopt cash crops in the district so that the timeline of 2022 to double the income of farmers is achieved.
Deputy Commissioner advised youth of the district to come forward and take benefits of the skill development programmes and become employment givers not employment seekers.
The Chief Agricultural Officer Kupwara, Nazir Ahmad Wani, who was the guest of honour on the occasion, said that KVK and Agriculture department are working together in the field and providing trainings to the farmers community and the youth to adopt new scientific techniques. He said 500 persons of Kupwara district are involved in beekeeping, who are generating employment avenues for themselves.
Narendra Singh Tomar launches portal and shopping corners to promote marketing of pure honey
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Tomar said that these two initiatives will help in promoting apiculture and would lead to increase in income of farmers. Madhukranti portal, an initiative of National Bee Board (NBB, is being developed for online registration to achieve traceability source of Honey and other beehive products on a digital platform.
Agencies
Tomar also launched Honey Corner - specially designed space in Nafed’s stores dedicated to sale of honey.
Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, on Wednesday, launched a portal - Madhukranti - to bring transparency by introducing traceability system in sourcing of honey.
Government planning checks on honey adulteration soon
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“We will launch a pilot project soon,” said an agriculture ministry official. “We need to develop a mechanism to track honey right from beehive to packaging to check adulteration at every level. National Bee Board (NBB), the apex body for promoting apiculture, will be the nodal organisation for this project.”
“There are around 10,000 beekeepers, processors and traders registered with NBB. We will expand the database and scale up the traceability system to ensure consumption of unadulterated honey,” he said.
The government is planning to introduce a traceability system to check adulteration and contamination in honey we consume. The system will have end-to-end record to track the source of honey.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority India (FSSAI) has launched a nationwide investigation into a widespread local honey adulteration scandal and is mulling ‘better’ test methods – but researchers are calling for the agency to take more ‘stronger, public action’ before the situation worsens.
The honey adulteration scandal was recently triggered when Indian research organisation Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) published a report revealing how 77% of local honey samples tested were found to be adulterated with sugar syrup – with many of these samples coming from big, established honey brands such as Dabur and Patanjali.
“A total of 13 honey brands were tested, [eight being] big brands and five niche brands. Overall, 17 out of 22 samples (77%) [of local honey] were found to be adulterated,” CSE said in the original report.
Honey sans bees
In 2013, India started using Neonicotinoid pesticides in order to protect a crop that Monsanto had promised the Indian farmer he would not have to use pesticides on. These are the worst pesticides in the world and they have been indicted for having killed billions of bees. I called a meeting of ICAR in 2014 to ask for a ban of these pesticides. ICAR refused, even though they admitted that the bee population has gone down sharply. They said cotton was more important than fruit, grain and flowers which are dependent on bee pollination!
If bees have gone down in number drastically, how has honey production tripled? Till 2013 the yearly growth rate was only 0-4.8 per cent. From 2013-14 the growth rate rocketed from 5.3 to 11.1 per cent! This could not have happened naturally. How have hundreds of honey companies come into the market? This question has always troubled me. I don’t eat honey.