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Agriculture: The unstable weather of this year reduces the production of honey by almost 30%
The unstable weather of this year reduces the honey production to 60-70% of what is produced in a good year with values of 25,000 – 27,000 tons, but the price of the honey will not grow,says the chairman of the Association of Beekeepers Romania (ACA) Ioan Fetea.
‘It was an easy, warm winter which led to the increase of the consumption of food and as the temperatures are high the bees started their activity sooner. This meant some efforts and beekeepers had to feed them more. Even so, the bees did not come very developed from the winter as we expected. The rape harvest was compromised 50% as there were rains, wind and cold days and it was not possible to put it to value. The acacia was the one which assured a production almost normal for a year, especially in the western part of the country was good, somewhere between 8 and 10 kg of honey for a family, but it was compromised in the south, including the in Ciucurova part of Tulcea county, which is the biggest area for linden trees in Europe. And this is due to the climate change’ Ioan Fetea said.
He also says that the sun flower - which last year saved the honey production – beekeepers did not have better results, as the harvest period was very short 3-4 days and it could not be put to value too much.
On the other hand, 2018 increased the interest for export of Romanian honey ‘ as it is necessary for blending in this mixture which is not normal’ as compared to last year when exports were almost zero.
‘We can’t compare the exports of this year with those of last year as in 2017 it was almost zero. Last year there was a real decline. Now we have orders from our former partners from Germany, France, Belgium and Italy’ added the representative of the beekeepers.
As for bio honey, although there is interest on the part of the beekeepers to get into this sector, as there are orders from export, there is not much financial support in the country.
‘The acquisition prices for bio honey did not grow as much as last year. The most was 3,500 -3,600 tons of bio honey 5 years ago but since then the production has dropped under 3,000 tons. The bio honey represents somewhat under 10% of the total production of honey, 7-8%. The bee families under conversion last year were 100,000 but this year the sector did not move too much’ Fetea said.
According to ACA, over the last two-three years, the honey consumption had a growth of 15% up to 550 grams per inhabitant per year, but even so Romania is at the back of the ranking at European level. The statistics data show that the Romanians consume 3-4 times less as compared to the two kilos consumed in Germany or 1.5 kilos in the Netherlands or Belgium. Unfortunately, the statistics show that the Romanians consume every day 70 grams of sugar and only three grams of honey.
Honey consumption could be improved if the law regarding the distribution of honey in schools comes into force starting with 1 January 2019 as the authorities have announced and through the implementation of the programme could be put to value on the domestic market to 3,000 tons of honey.
Romania produces on average 22,000 tons of honey annually, thus being the fourth in Europe, and the number of bees got in 2015 to a peak of 1.47 million bee families. At present there are 1,450 million bee families the annual growth being only 3-5%.
At national level are recorded around 40,000 beekeepers, over 60% of them being ACA members, with a number of 900,000 bee families.