Challenges to sustaining beekeeping livelihoods in Ghana
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Challenges to sustaining beekeeping livelihoods in Ghana Emmanuel Bintaayi Jeil
. Kabila Abass
. Alexander Yao Segbefia
Accepted: 3 September 2020 Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Although making a living within the beekeeping value chain can be wobbly due to some challenges, this aspect has often been ignored in academic circles. Discussions of challenges to livelihoods that draw on beekeeping have focused largely on beehive management but paid little attention to related issues that engage broader contexts of the beekeeping value chain. This paper, therefore, examines challenges to beekeeping livelihoods among actors within Ghana’s beekeeping value chain. The study is a cross-sectional study employing a mixedmethod and a triangulation of individual interviews and focus group discussions. To examine the different challenges to the beekeeping value chain, we purposively sampled 106 beekeepers, six hive product retailers and two key informants from Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The findings revealed that bee abscondment, pest and predators, lack of finance, and bush (wild) fires were some of the challenges to the sustainability of livelihoods of beekeepers. However, participants ranked lack of
E. B. Jeil (&) K. Abass A. Y. Segbefia Department of Geography and Rural Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana e-mail: [email protected] K. Abass e-mail: [email protected] A. Y. Segbefia e-mail: [email protected]
finance to expand operations as the major challenge to beekeeping livelihoods. Institutional support from Non-Governmental Organisations and financial institutions in the form of credit and education is a critical requirement for making livelihoods hinged on beekeeping secure and sustainable. Keywords Beekeeping Challenges Livelihoods sustainability Ghana
Introduction Though the beekeeping value chain provides alternative pathways through which livelihoods can be constructed, it is saddled with a myriad of challenges. These challenges limit the economic potential of beekeeping as a livelihood strategy. Different challenges are encountered at various levels of pursuing beekeeping livelihood strategies. One category of challenges relates to the low level of technology employed in beekeeping. Despite the advantages associated with the use of improved beekeeping technology and modern beehives, some beekeepers still resort to the use of traditional beehives. However, the adoption of improved hives such as the frame hive can result in improved honey yield compared to traditional beehives (Kiros and Tsegay 2017). Lack of modern production and rearing techniques and
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training, for example, ranked third in a study that sought to explore the major constraints to beekeeping in Pakistan (Khan et al. 2017). When beekeepers are stuck to the traditional ways of beekeeping, they may record low yield of hive products. The use of traditional technology is responsible for both the low quantity an
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