Green Thumb - 13

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Green Thumb - 13
Transcript
00:00 Green Thumb Tuesdays is brought to you courtesy the Agricultural Development Bank.
00:04 Growing stronger together.
00:05 [Music]
00:13 Hidden within the Northern Range are Jerome Lawrence's thriving hives.
00:17 The Northern Range is very good for bees because we have a great forage.
00:21 For instance, like Sandy Granny, you might get the rubber honey on that side,
00:25 which is a main thing that the beekeepers harvest over there.
00:28 But we have this mixed forest over here, so the quality of honey is very, very high.
00:34 His bee business has been essential to his livelihood.
00:38 Beekeeping has done a lot for me. It bought my vans, it paid for my ATV.
00:42 It did a lot for me. It even set up this whole, it set up everything, you know.
00:46 But it's just to be able to access funding and to go forward and to be able to have
00:50 money to invest into the business and go forward.
00:53 Support from his family and the Agricultural Development Bank have placed him in
00:58 a profitable position. But there's a problem.
01:01 One which has only been worsening in the last two decades. He's been a beekeeper.
01:06 Well, years gone by, the bees did well because we had great temperatures and great weather pattern.
01:14 Right? But this year was kind of rough for the bees because we had a lot of rain and
01:17 that throw off the bees. So they didn't get to produce much nectar this year.
01:22 The weather have a lot to do with beekeeping, you know, so it is possible.
01:25 But I think with good management practices, we could do better.
01:29 Bottles of Lawrence's Nature Harvest honey have been on the shelves.
01:34 But low production spells bad news.
01:36 There's still a rush for honey. Just that this year, honey is a short,
01:40 it's a shortage of honey this year because of the weather pattern.
01:44 This year with the lot of rain in the dry season.
01:48 Despite endeavouring for years, like other beekeepers, his business is feeling the sting
01:55 from lack of access to much needed lands.
01:57 I applied for this land 17 years ago and to now, nothing, nothing going on, you know.
02:05 This is one thing to help boost the farmers. Everybody's situation might be different.
02:08 So you would need to assist farmers in different ways because your situation might be accessed.
02:14 My situation, I can handle my access, but we need to be regularised on the property in order that we
02:19 can access loans, to be able to invest in the business, to be able to access incentives.
02:26 In order to that same money we access back from incentives, we could also use that
02:31 to invest in the industry, to build the industry in order to be able to expand and go forward.
02:37 Lawrence says beekeepers have been unable to meet the local, regional and even global demand for
02:42 honey and are calling on the authorities to inject more in the sector for its growth and expansion.
02:49 Jesse Ramlehoos, CNC3 News.
02:52 Green Thumb Tuesdays was brought to you courtesy of the Agricultural Development Bank.
03:00 Growing stronger together.