National Beekeepers Association

Richard Okoe is the founder and President of the National Beekeepers Association, He has 20 years experience as a beekeeper and environmentalist. He trained as a veterinarian and holds a National Diploma in Animal Science from the University of Ghana. He is a Master in Economics student at the Atlantic International University in the USA. He has attended many courses in rural development. In 2019 he attended an International Course in rural development at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands.He has 22 years rural banking experience. He worked for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture for 10 years before joining the rural bank in 1988. He has spent all his working life serving the poor in rural communities. He is the general administrator and lead trainer of the Association.

He is also the founder of the NGOs Community Development Challenge and Women and Youth in Beekeeping and Value Chain-Ghana.

Food productivity in Ghana is very low. Farmers are thereby poor because of low crop yields. This is discouraging the youth from going into agriculture creating high unemployment rate in the rural communities. The farmers are not literate and are not receiving education to help them produce more to earn more. This problem can be addressed by educating and training farmers to adopt sustainable farming practices and integrate pollinator conservation in their crop farming to increase pollination and productivity.

We train farmers in the rural communities and supply them beekeeping equipment to establish apiaries on their farms to increase pollination. We train them to produce quality honey and beeswax and to add value to the bee products  to produce natural cosmetics. The farmers earn more money from the  sale of the crops, bee products, and beeswax. The youth are being employed to process and sell  the bee products and cosmetics.

Climate change is rapidly emerging as a crucial issue affecting many sectors in the world and is considered to be one of the most serious threat to sustainable development (Akinnagbe and Irohibe, 2014) [1]. The increased emission from energy, industry and agricultural sectors, widespread deforestation as well as rapid changes in land use and land management practices is contributing to a remarkable change in the gaseous composition of earth’s atmosphere. Anthropogenic activities contribute to enhanced emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) referred to as greenhouse gases (GHGs) popularly. The outgoing infrared radiations from the earth’s surface is trapped by GHGs resulting in rise of atmospheric temperature. Agricultural activities contribute immensely to climate change as it ranks third after energy consumption and chlorofluorocarbon production in enhancing greenhouse emissions. Agriculture impacts climate change and also is largely impacted by climatic aberrations and affecting more than 2.2 billion people globally.

In Ghana crop productivity is very low partly due to lack of effective pollination, threatening our food self sufficiency. More than 5,000,000 peasant farmers are made poor due to the low productivity.

The youth are  thereby not attracted to farming.Unemployment is rising.

Many are poor.

We educate farmers to understand the impact of climate change in agriculture and to appreciate the role of pollinators in crop farming.  We educate them to adopt sustainable farming practices and  use climate adaptive methods in their farming such as taking the right measures to lessen the negative impacts of climate change or exploit the positive ones. We educate them to cultivate high yielding disease and drought resistant planting materials.

We train them to establish apiaries in their crop farms to increase pollination and productivity. We supply them beekeeping materials including beehives, bee suits, smokers, hive tools, honey press, centrifugal extractors, solar extractors, and others. We promote biodiversity. We train them to adopt climate change mitigation and aim at stabilizing and reducing atmospheric CO2 concentration by (i) Reducing emissions such as avoiding slash and burn practices, and (ii) Increasing sequestration by planting more tree crops and establishing bee habitats. We educate them to integrate poultry and livestock farming into their crop farming to produce healthy nutritious food.

Economically our farmers earn more money from the sale of their increased crop yields due to increased pollination. They earn cash from the sale of the bee products as well.

The population of Nkoranza South Municipality, according to the 2010 Population and Housing Census, is 100,929. Males constitute 49.6 percent and females represent 50.4 percent. Of the employed population, about 75.0 percent are engaged as skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers,

The Municipality used to be a thick forest area but the vegetation has changed to that of savannah mainly due to the adverse effects of bush fires, rapid expansion of agriculture. Among the effects of the deforestation are the change in the rainfall pattern and the disappearance of some forest resources .

Crop productivity is declining making the farmers poorer. The youth shy from going into agriculture.

We engage the community to discuss the challenges they face and the solution we profess.Our Association is owned by the farmers from the communities and together we design the solutions and implement in the communities.

The farmers testify to the increase in crop yields and revenue generated .They make appreciable profit from their crop sales. They also harvest the bee products such as honey and beeswax to sell for additional income. We train the women to add value to the bee products to produce natural cosmetics to sell to make more money.

In Africa farmers are the poorest. Rural farmers are traditionally abandoned to their fate and to live in poverty till they die.

Schools, good roads, hospitals, internet services, and other social infrastructure are not available in rural communities. 

Businesses are not established in the rural communities. The farmers do not have access to technology.

In Ghana more than 5,000,000 peasant farmers are living in abject poverty due to low productivity.We work with these farmers to increase productivity and improve their living standards.

We train and supply them beekeeping equipment to establish apiaries on their farms to increase pollination and productivity.

Working as the head of credit in a rural bank in Ghana, I advanced credit to a group of cashew farmers. They were unable to repay the loan after maturity. Although the farmers adopted all the cultural practices including weed control and fertilizer application the yield was low.

In my investigations to establish the cause of the poor yields I stumbled on the role of pollinators in crop production. This got me excited and wrote a proposal to the United States African Development Foundation (USADF) for a grant support to the bank to support micro the farmers. The bank supplied beekeeping equipment to the farmers including beehives, bee suits, and smokers. The farmers harvested more yields  the next harvest and repaid their loans due to increased pollination. They further harvested the bee products such as honey and beeswax and got additional income.

A research by Aidoo et al. on behalf of the African Cashew Initiative established that cashew yields  more than doubled when beekeeping is integrated into the cashew farms.Other publications by the FAO support this finding.

In the year 2000 I started the beekeepers association with ten farmers. Today we have more than 5,000 registered farmers across Ghana.

As a son of a peasant farmer and a grandson of peasant farmers I owe it a duty to assist farmers in any ways I can afford to. 

I trained as a veterinarian and worked with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture for 10 years serving peasant farmers in the rural communities in the northern parts of Ghana where poverty levels are the highest in Ghana.

I resigned from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to join Nkoranza-Kwabre Rural Bank as the credit manager to support peasant farmers with loans to invest in their farming.

It is heart breaking to drag to farmers to court because they were unable to repay their loans as a result of low productivity. I realized farmers need multiple income streams from their farming to generate enough revenue to repay their loans, invest in their farms, and have enough to take care of their families to live a better life.

I resigned from the bank to concentrate on my non profit social organizations namely Community Development Challenge, National Beekeepers Association, and Women and Youth in Beekeeping and Value Chain-Ghana.

Farmers need such committed leadership to change the narrative and make farmers feel proud.

I trained as veterinarian at the Pong-Tamale Veterinary College and also holds a National Diploma in Animal Science from the University of Ghana. Currently I am a Master in Economics student at the Atlantic International University in Hawaii in the USA. I have attended many rural development courses including the 2019 course I attended at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

I worked with Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the poverty stricken northern regions of Ghana for 10 years. I then joined the Nkoranza-Kwabre rural bank in the Bono East region of Ghana as the head of credit. Nkoranza is a typical farming community and is amongst the poor districts in Ghana. The main occupation is farming.. I worked for the bank for more than 16 years.  I managed many poverty alleviation projects on behalf of the bank to support peasant farmers within the bank's catchment area.

Some of the projects I managed included Care Microsmart Project, Rural Enterprises Project, Small Scale Farmers Improvement and Marketing Project, Roots and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Project, and many others.

I have 20 years experience as a beekeeper and environmentalist. I am the founder and president of the National Beekeepers Association and board chair of Women and Youth in Beekeeping and Value Chain-Ghana, and the founder of Community Development Challenge.

In the year 2000 we started the Nkoranza and Techiman Beekeepers Association with 10 farmers from the 2 towns Nkoranza and Techiman. By 2001 we grown to 98 farmers. Seeing that farmers were joining the association and membership was growing, some of the leaders from Techiman decided that we move the  registered head office from Nkoranza to Techiman since there were more members from Techiman.

Farmers from Nkoranza rejected the suggestion since the idea originated in Nkoranza and I was resident in Nkoranza. Members from Techiman left the Association. This reduced our membership to less than 28 members. 

Just as we were working to get more farmers register and benefit from our services our 10-acre mango farm at Atekoano, a village near Nkoranza, got burned by bush fire. The farm was our apiary where we have our beehives and train our farmers.

We lost the farm, the beehives, and the bee colonies. We lost everything and some farmers lost hope and left the association. 

I persisted and started all over again and made new investment. Today we have more than 5,000 registered farmers across Ghana, including farmers from Techiman and Nkoranza.

My leadership qualities were immediately recognised by the management and board of Nkoranza-Kwabre rural bank as soon as I joined the bank where I worked for more than 16 years.

Although I was the head of credit the board of directors co-opted me to become the acting board secretary for a number of years. I was also giving the responsibility as the Administrator and the acting Chief Executive Officer of the bank. I attracted various projects and grants to the bank including the grant from the United States African Development Foundation to support cottage industries including farming. I was the project manager as well.

Growing the National Beekeepers Association from 10 members to 5,000 across Ghana attests to my leadership qualities.  Many women and youth are joining my organization Women and Youth in Beekeeping and Value Chain- Ghana.  This women organization received a COVID 19 alleviation grant support from the Orange Corners Acceleration Program sponsored by the Netherlands government in May 2020

My organization Community Development Challenge is assisting various communities to address challenges relating to health, education, and sanitation.

We organize peasant farmers in rural communities in Ghana and train them in their local languages to appreciate the role of pollinators in their crop farming, and adopt both adaptive and mitigating conservation measures.

We supply them beekeeping equipment to establish apiaries on their farms to increase productivity due to increase in pollination by the bees and other pollinators. Further more the farmers harvest the bee products to sell to earn additional income. We train them to produce high quality bee products and to add value to the bee products to produce natural cosmetics.We especially train the women and youth to produce and market the bee products and cosmetics. The farmers further make money by selling the cosmetics too.

Our farmers are establishing businesses in the villages and employing women and youth in the production and ,marketing of the bee products and cosmetics.

We make a minimum of 30% rate of return on each sales we make. Bee products are in high demand locally and globally. As an Association of small scale farmers spread across Ghana, we have a wide production base and supply is assured.

We are actively planting tree crops and other plants to serve as pollinator habitats and alsoto reduce global warming by improving sequestration of atmospheric green house gases such as CO2. We are conserving pollinators and promoting biodiversity.

WE meet more than 10 of the 17 Sustainable Development goals.

We educate and  train rural farmers to appreciate the role of pollinators and adopt adaptive and mitigating climate measures to build climate resilient farming and agribusinesses. We train the farmers to establish apiaries on their crop farms, produce high quality bee products, and natural cosmetics.

The farmers now understand climate change and role of pollinators. They are planting more trees to aid in sequestration of atmospheric green houses gases to reduce global warming. They are preserving pollinators including bees to promote biodiversity, both flora and fauna.. They are increasing crop productivity as a result of increase in pollinator services by the bees and other pollinators.The farmers are making more money from the sale of the crops due to increase in productivity. They are also making additional income from the sale of the bee products and cosmetics.

The women are establishing businesses in the rural communities and employing women and youth in the production and sales of bee products and natural cosmetics.

The outcome of our project will be seen in the improved standards of living of our farmers due to increase in education and income. Businesses are established to employ women and youth to reduce the unemployment rate in rural communities  and improve the local economy. 

More trees and plants are planted to reduce global warming by reducing atmospheric  green house gases, reduce the effects of erosion, and stall desertification.. Biodiversity is promoted and the environment is conserved.

The FAO in its publication ; NON WOOD FOREST PRODUCTS 19, stated that :

When apiculture forms part of people’s livelihood strategies there are various possible outcomes. Some of these outcomes will include income and material goods, but also non-material outcomes such as well-being
and contentment. In terms of apiculture, the least visible livelihood outcome is the pollination of flowering
plants, both wild and cultivated: this is an outcome impossible to quantify. Honey generates income and can create livelihoods for several sectors within a society.
Beeswax is also a valuable product from beekeeping, although in some places its value is not appreciated.
Industrialized countries are net importers of beeswax, and the supply comes from developing countries.

The National Beekeepers Association currently has over 5,000 registered farmers living in the rural communities of Ghana.

We project woeking with additional 1,500 by December 2021 making a total of 6,500 by close of 2021.

We expect to increase our registered members by a minimum of 30% annually. We hope to work with 20,000 farmers by the year 2025.

We aim at raising local champions for rural communities who will incrtease food crop productivity and be environmental heroes of change. They will educate and train other farmers to appreciate the role of pollinators and integrate beekeeping in their crop production increase productivity and promote biodiversity.These champions will tell their story to encourage others to emulate them. They are lifted out of poverty by the integration of bees in their crop farming resulting in higher crop yields. They even make more money from the sale of the bee products, and further make more money from the production and sale of natural cosmetics using bee products.They establish businesses and employ women and the youth in the production and marketing of the bee products and cosmetics.

These champions will in turn educate and train their colleague peasant farmers to increase productivity, make more money, move out of poverty, establish businesses in the rural communities to employ the youth and vulnerable, promote biodiversity, and conserve the environment.

We train the farmers and support them further by supplying them beekeeping equipment, seedlings, and help in marketing their bee products and cosmetics.

These trained farmers tell their story to other farmers and help in training new farmers as wel to spread the message and raise more champions.

We are highly constrained by the lack of financial resources to expand our project to train and support more farmers next year and the years beyond. We need funding to organize and train more farmers in the rural communities and to purchase beekeeping and cosmetics making equipment to supply to the farmers.

We also need funding to buy the bee products and cosmetics from the farmers to sell. This arrangement gives the farmers cash immediately when we buy from them.

We need technical training in beekeeping and value addition to enhance our knowledge and capacity.

We need to embark on digital and e-marketing especially in this COVID 19 pandemic era.  We have to build a very good website to market our services and products, and employ other digital applications to market our services and products.

We will continue to apply to institutions and organizations interested and able to support rural farmers to solicit financial aid in the form of investments, partnership, grants,loans,  or any other financial assistance we deem appropriate to further our cause.

We will apply to institutions and NGOs to train our workers and farmers to gain further technical knowledge in agronomy, apiculture, and cosmetology.

We will hire the services of an expert to build a good website to market our products and services.We will also purchase digital applications to market our services and products.

We partner with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the training of our farmers in agronomy and apiculture. They also supply seedlings to the farmers.

We partner the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to get the services of decentralized agencies, and for infrastructural development in our communities, and access to the local markets.

We work with Environmental Protection Agency to enforce environmental bye laws.

We work with the traditional authorities  to acquire lands