IN A NUT SHELL
The envisaged statistics will take into account individual beekeepers, beekeeper groups, bee products processors as well as other stakeholders in the beekeeping and honey processing chain
DODOMA. TANZANIA is planning to conduct a baseline survey on actual statistics of available number of beekeepers and honey production volume in the country.
The timely survey will be conducted by the Tanzania Forest Service (TFS) in cooperation with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism and the Tanzania Forest Research Institute (TAFORI).
The envisaged statistics will take into account individual beekeepers, beekeeper groups, bee products processors as well as other stakeholders in the beekeeping and honey processing chain.
TFS Assistant Senior Commissioner, Mr. Hussein Msuya told the publication in the sideline of a special training towards the numerators for the exercise that the development focuses to bolster the much- needed development in the country’s apiculture sector.
According to him, the exercise targets to collect reliable statistics of the number of beekeepers in the country, beekeeper groups, the extent of honey production in the country and annual honey exportation volume.
“Despite being among key economic sector, the Tanzania’s beekeeping sector lacks reliable statistics, the sector has for years relies on the estimated statistic from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) the statistics that are however not reflective,” he said.
He said the envisaged exercise will collect the actual statistics that will be helpful to the government while setting several planning and priorities for the development of the sector in the country.
“This training has been designed to impart the numerators who will collect the statistics with vital skills and awareness over how to handle the exercise professionally for best results,” he said.
All other necessary preparation ahead of the crucial statistics have been attained, Commissioner Msuya noted.
These including preparation of professional questionnaires, development of a special cloud- connected system for gathering the statistics, and sample size of the data to be collected.
“After this training, there’will be the other training to grill those who will be responsible for the major task to analyse the collected statistics before being officially released for public use,” he added.
For his part, Mr. Stanislaus Lukiko, a researcher from TAFORI said compilation of the data on Tanzania’s beekeeping sector will help to push for major transformation, should the statistics used professionally.
“The data expected to be collected will be useful to enable the government and the development partners in the side to understand, and help solving the diverse challenges facing the actors involving in the sector,” he said.
Mr. Pascus Mwilu, the officer responsible for statistics at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism said among others collection of actual data will place the government in a better position to establish the sector’s contribution towards the DGP.
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