Getting a boost from bees in rural Vietnam
25 February 2008
Nguyen
Huu Tuong retired from the Vietnamese army with minor combat injuries in 1995 at
the age of 45. Reunited with his wife and four children in Bac Giang, a
mountainous rural province in the north, he found it hard to make a living, but
had few options to improve his lot.
Besides his pension, the whole family lived on the proceeds of 360 square metres
of land for growing rice and 120 square metres for vegetables. “It was a really
difficult time,” Tuong recalls. “The children needed to go to school, the house
was badly run-down, and three very basic meals a day were all we could afford.”
But the ex-soldier fought on, and when a
Swedish
International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) project and a programme
funded by DFID and the World Bank were deployed in the area, he found a way to
make a new beginning. Beekeeping proved to be the answer.
When flowers bloomed
Honey production was not new to the area. However, it had always been limited
to one or two periods a year when flowers bloomed – enough to provide a family
with honey, but not with a core source of income.
The aid projects introduced a year-round model that enabled beekeepers to
generate a more sustainable income. A high-producing Italian bee replaced the
local variety, and poor households were given start-up funding and technical
training courses through their local agriculture promotion centre.
Early setbacks, unwavering commitment
Tuong was one of the first farmers selected to join the programme. “It was not easy at all. Though I knew how to keep bees, keeping this new ‘foreign’ bee throughout the year was a real challenge,” he said.
The first year was a complete failure. A lot of bees died between flowering seasons and due to diseases in winter. Tuong had neither enough money to buy sugar to feed the bees nor a place where they could shelter in bad weather.
But his commitment to his new vocation was unwavering. He kept working, borrowed
money from local banks and constantly honed his operation with advice from the
local agriculture promotion centre, adopting it even when it veered from
traditional techniques.
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Financial security
Gradually, production improved and, last year, Tuong processed 30 beehives,
each consisting of eight to ten frames. He spent the equivalent of £16 every
month on food and medicine for the bees, and, over the year, earned the
equivalent of £482 from selling honey and at least £193 from breeding bees for
other keepers.
Beekeeping has now replaced rice and vegetables as his family’s main source of
income. No longer a poor farmer, Tuong is now esteemed as one of his community’s
most experienced beekeepers. He is enjoying the fruits of his new labours and
has used some of his earnings to improve his home. One of his grown-up children
has become a secondary teacher in the district.
Life is certainly not luxurious, but Tuong’s family now have the financial
security they dreamed of for so long. “There is no secret to this success,” he
says with a smile. “‘Work hard, accept new techniques, learn from your failure –
and don’t give up!”
Key facts
- This project was part of the Northern Mountain Poverty Reduction Programme. Administered by the World Bank and covering six mountainous provinces in the North of Vietnam, it ran from December 2001 to December 2007, and was worth $132.5 million.
- DFID contributed £7.5 million to the programme.
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