The current situation of the agricultural production and especially the sector of beekeeping in Arsi-Zone were presented in Chapter 5. Major constraints could be identified regarding sustainable production which would allow for the mainte-nance of eco-system services while generating additional income for small-scale farmers and beekeepers.
Both situation analyses confirmed the need to see apiculture and agriculture as a single system rather than regarding both sectors separately. Including apiculture in agricultural management and vice versa might lead to synergy effects with benefits for sustainability.
As mentioned before, bees are an indicator for resilient and healthy land-scapes. Keeping the bees in Arsi-Zone with the help of adjusted agricultural activi-ties and with a supply of bee forage throughout the year could have effects such as less application of harmful agro-chemicals and could ideally lead to sustainable income generation in the region. Within this structure these synergy effects will be discussed according to environmental, social and economic aspects. Appropri-ate farming methods fulfil the requirements for integrating apiculture into agricul-ture.
This idea was elaborated on by the concept of growing Identified Multi-Purpose Plants (IMPPs). IMPPs are plants that serve as bee forage and provide additional benefits in at least one additional sustainability category. They may be a living fence, edge strips, intercropped plants, or trees. They were identified as existent or capable of being integrated within the current system and worth pro-moting. Sustainable introduction or promotion of certain plants is only achievable if the incentives and benefits exceed the required efforts. The strongest incentive would be an IMPP’s market value, however further possibilities were identified.
The IMPPs and their benefits are listed in Table 21. Successful integration and promotion of IMPPs would require further research into the feasibility and neces-sary requirements (see recommendations, section 8.2).
Ecological dimension
As presented in Box 1 in 2.3 (p. 6), bees have an important role within the eco-system pollinating flowers. Once bees disappear this ecoeco-system service is missing, leading to significant changes and loss of biodiversity. Conversely, bees need a flowering landscape to have enough bee forage over the year. When designing a sustainable landscape, plants serving as bee forage could be integrated to supply food for the bees in various ways e.g. as living fences, additional crops on the field
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Synergies between apiculture and agricultureor trees. Examples include chickpeas (Cicer arietinum), lentils (Lens culinaris) and acacia trees. They all fix nitrogen, increasing soil fertility and reducing the need for fertilisers.
Social dimension
The integration of plants serving as bee forage should have benefits for farm-ers. Plants or crops could serve as additional source of food, contributing to food security and healthy nutrition. Other direct benefits for farmers include e.g. prick-ly pear (Opuntia cylindrica) serving as livestock fodder or trees providing building material or fuel wood. Consequently, some IMPPs could reduce farmers’ expenses assuming they were provided with the necessary seeds or saplings.
An IMPP with special cultural value is the meskel flower (Bidens macroptera) which play a prominent role in an Ethiopian religious celebration. Enabling bee-keeping through the provision of bee forage sustains the traditional and cultural practices connected to honey. Honey and other apicultural products are used as traditional medicine (e.g. a mixture of wheat and honey is given to women after birth to strengthen their circulation). IMPPs such as sensel (Justitia schimperana), also have medicinal values. Reconciliation of apiculture and agriculture would serve to provide small-scale farmers with a socially inclusive source of income.
Under the right circumstances and if transitional hives were used, beekeeping could be practised by men and women, young and old, requiring neither much space nor high investment costs.
Economic dimension
If farmers integrate beekeeping into their agricultural system, an additional in-come opportunity will emerge. Interviews and transects made it clear that the demand for honey in Arsi-Zone is high and so is the price. Beekeeping and honey production could generate employment opportunities (especially for young peo-ple) and could serve as additional income activities (especially for women). This was emphasised in the gross margin calculation (see section 6.2). In addition, in-come could be generated through the diversification of crop rotation. Demand for oil crops is rising. Plants like sunflower, flax or oil-seed rape could be harvested and marketed by the farmers and would simultaneously serve as bee forage.
Product diversification might make farmers more resilient and less dependent on cash-crops.
Concerning the synergies of beekeeping and employment, a necessary step could be the establishment of a proper value chain for honey. As mentioned in the situation analysis of the honey value chain, there is a lack of input supplies for
Synergies between apiculture and agriculture
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beekeepers, such as processing machines or protective clothing. If the demand for those products increases, supply of them might increase as well. Processing man-ufactures as well carpenters could create jobs.
To conclude, the analysis show possible synergy effects and multi-dimensional benefits when agriculture and beekeeping in Arsi-Zone are thought of in a system approach. Improved sustainability in the farming system could contribute to halt-ing the decline of bee colonies (question III). In return, environmental hazards and threats to human health through crop production could be reduced (question IV).
To give a practical example of this integration, IMPPs fulfil the requirement of serving as bee forage on the one hand but also create an additional benefit for small-scale farmers and on their farms. These benefits should sustainably pro-mote the planting of bee forage (question II). The following IMPPs were identified throughout this research and were re-evaluated during the stakeholder workshop:
Table 21: Identified Multi-Purpose Plants (IMPPs)
IMPP Bees’ benefits Farm benefits Farmers’ benefits
Crops Flax (Linum
usitatissimum) Less pesticide demanding
Diversification of crop
(Bras-sica oleracea) Diversification of crop
rotation Additional income.
Sunflower Diversification of crop
rotation
Livestock fodder
Additional income:
26.00 ETB/kg Home consumption
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Synergies between apiculture and agricultureTable 21: Identified Multi-Purpose Plants (IMPPs) (cont.)
IMPP Bees’ benefits Farm benefits Farmers’ benefits
Lentils (Lens
(Vicia faba) Flowering from June to March
Agroforest system Additional income:
83.20 ETB/kg beans
Sensel (Justitia schim-perana)
Honeybees collect pol-len and nectar from the flowers
Flowering throughout the year
Living fence -> helps
structuring farmland Medical use
Crushed leaves used
(Cordia africana) Supplies abundant pollen and copious pol-len and nectar from the flowers
Source: own data, Fichtl and Abi (1994)
Conclusions and recommendations