KENDRAPARA: Covid-19 may have disrupted businesses but it has led to a sharp surge in demand for honey. With people clamouring for immunity boosters, honey is now in demand and it augurs well for apiculturists of Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur districts.
Honey was sold at Rs 600 per kg six months back. With increase in demand since March, the price has now gone up to Rs 1,000 per kg. Jagatsinghpur’s Basant Swain says, demand for pure honey went up by 200 per cent during the second wave of the pandemic.
Several apiculturists of the districts have been assisted by the Krushi Vigyan Kendra of Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar and National Rice Research Institute (NRRI), Cuttack. Rajanikanta Das (40) of Silipur village is one of the several apiculturists trained for a month by NRRI scientist, Basant Gowda.
Rajanikanta has installed 15 honey bee boxes on his land and collected 50 kg honey last month. “I supply honey to Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and other areas of the State,” he said. Former professor of OUAT and scientist emeritus of Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Dr Chittaranjan Satapathy said apiculture has transformed the lives of 30,000 honey bee farmers of the State.
Honey bee farming is a viable option for many in the State where the climatic condition is suitable for it.
Farmers of the State rear the Indian Honey Bee (Apis Cerana Indica) and several of them have been trained by OUAT in the last one decade, he said.