National Bee Board sanctions ₹2.22 crore to Gramajanya Farmers’ Producer Company to set up honey, bee wax processing unit at Puttur
The Hindu
A honey and bee wax processing unit with an in-house testing laboratory, cold storage and marketing centre is all set to come up at Puttur in Dakshina Kannada. The National Bee Board (NBB), under Mini Mission II of the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission, has extended the financial assistance to a Farmers’ Producer Company for the purpose.
A honey and bee wax processing unit with an in-house testing laboratory, cold storage and marketing centre is all set to come up at Puttur in Dakshina Kannada. The National Bee Board (NBB), under Mini Mission II of the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission, has extended the financial assistance to a Farmers’ Producer Company for the purpose.
The NBB through the Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium has sanctioned ₹2.22 crore to the Gramajanya Farmers’ Producer Company (FPC) Ltd. to set up the unit. The FPC based at Puttur is into contract farming of apiculture and manufacturing of value added products of honey and bee wax. It is the pioneer FPC in Karnataka which is into contract farming of apiculture since 2021.
Ramapratheek Kariyal, one of the directors of the company, told The Hindu that of the amount sanctioned, ₹1 crore has been released for the purpose and the civil works of the project was launched at Mundur in Puttur a few days ago. It has been proposed to set up a 10 ton-per day capacity honey processing unit at the place.
The project proposal also comprises having a packaging and storage unit for honey and beehive products.
In addition to the financial assistance from the NBB, the Farmers’ Producer Company has planned to seek ₹3.7 crore from the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme for the unit and it can get 35% subsidy under the scheme.
“There is a potential to harvest 9,000 tons of honey per annum in the coastal region comprising some parts of Kasaragod district of Kerala,” he said.
The Chief Executive Officer of the FPC Rajesh Suvarna said that that the company now marketed 31 honey and bee wax based value-added products. The FPC had about 400 members with 750 beehives. The company marketed different variants of honey like forest honey, box honey, sting-less bee honey, jamun honey, areca honey and the like.