The Youth Apiculture Initiative (YFAI) has reiterated the importance of bees in boosting food security globally.
The President of the group, Mr. Yusuf Adeyemo, disclosed this in an interview on Friday in Lagos.
Adeyemo said bees are important in ensuring food security and economic development.
Apiculture is the practice of keeping bees and manufacturing honey and beeswax.
It also means the raising and care of bees for commercial or agricultural purposes.
“Bees play significant role to us in many ways which includes, honey production; hive products important for human wellness; crops and plant pollination; and environmental conservation.
“More than a third of the food served everyday on our tables has a footprint of a bee through pollination services to crops and plants.
“Most farmers growing different cash and food crops, citrus more than before, require the services of beekeepers to provide their colonies during flowering period if we are to achieve maximum yields and high quality farm produce.
“The bees are prominent pollinators and are recognised by the United Nations.
“One of the key thing is to protect bees because they are essential for ensuring global food security.
“If bees go into extinction, it will negatively affect agriculture performance globally.
“Bees also have huge economic potential as a business and a wealth creation avenue for many,” Adeyemo said.
He also reiterated that the apiculture sector must be revived for increased agriculture revenue.
“Bee keeping is viable and can generate sizeable revenue for the country.
“If we embark on beekeeping like the Europeans and East Africans, we can create a lot of employment from the sector.
“We are carrying out advocacy to boost the potential of beekeeping in Nigeria and we have involved a lot of youth in our activities.
“We need all hands on deck from farmers, producers, marketers and processors to boost bee farming in Nigeria.
“We are also the only ones that commemorate the World Bee Day and The World Bee summit in Nigeria.
“Our cardinals point is to introduce more young people into beekeeping and to scale beekeeping from a social intervention project to a commercially lucrative enterprise,” he said.
Adeyemo said that the association would preserve bee pollination from going into extinction through awareness creation of the economic benefits.
According to him, bee is one of the most economically important insects in the agricultural economy, rendering pollination services, producing honey and other hive products.
“We are about preserving bees from extinction. The World Bee Day is all about preserving the world pollinators.
“We want to protect bees from extinction and also improve the health of the bees to contribute to ensuring food security and wealth creation.
“World Bee Day is celebrated on May 20 annually. And we will be commemorating it on May 22nd and 23rd, where we will be hosted by the University of Abuja.
“Beekeeping has become one of the major priorities identified by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture as a low hanging fruit that can support the country’s drive to diversify the economy away from over-reliance on oil.
“Bees have the ability to create jobs for youths and women across Nigeria especially for the rural communities because the business is not capital intensive when compared with other businesses,” he said.
The YFAI comprises a network of groups and individuals who are passionate about apiculture development in Nigeria and Africa with a vision to upscale youth participation in apiculture for job and wealth creation.
