A total of One hundred and twenty (120) recipients comprising eighty-four (84) females and thirty-six (36) males drawn from various Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), Youth and other community groups in the Upper East and Upper West Regions of Ghana have received trainings and supported with start-up inputs for beekeeping. These items include one hundred and twenty (120) beehives with metal stands and other beekeeping accessories including overall, veils, wellington boots, gloves, harvesting tools and harvesting buckets.
This intervention is under the IUCN led project titled “Creating Land of Opportunities: Transforming Livelihoods through landscape restoration in the Sahel”. The project is funded by the Italian Ministry of Ecological Transitions through the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) – Global Mechanism with implementation in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Niger. In Ghana, the project is implemented in eight (8) communities within four districts in Upper East and Upper West Regions. These are Builsa South District (Dalaasa and Naadema), Talensi District (Yameriga and Awaradone), Bawku West (Tarikom and Gbango) and Sissala East District (Nanchala and Saakalu). IUCN is implementing the project together with A Rocha Ghana, CSIR-SARI and EPA.
One key output of the project is to provide economic opportunities that have a positive impact on land fertility, agricultural productivity, landscape and ecosystem services. Beekeeping has proven to offer these critical support systems to livelihoods and the ecosystem. The objective is to provide households with supplementary income during the dry season which will intend curb some environmental destruction such as bush burning and cutting of trees during the process of honey harvesting.
Beekeeping presents broader advantages such as pollination services that promote food security and biodiversity conservation. It also ensures total protection of the environment since trees that provide honey and associated bee products are better protected by the presence of beekeepers. However, there are several threats to healthy bee population. These include bad farming practices which constitute slush and burn, rampant tree felling and use of synthetic Argo-chemicals. The Savannah woodland of Ghana is endowed with excellent floral diversity and riparian ecosystems that support beekeeping activity. As an agrarian landscape people’s livelihood heavily depend on natural resources and farmers rely greatly on bees for crop production.