Give bee farmers enough profit space to produce good honey

With one-ninth of the world's bee population, the world's largest honey output and one-fourth of the world's total honey exports, China is a well-deserved beekeeping country. At the same time, China's beekeeping industry is facing the embarrassing situation of being a "quantitative power" but not a "benefit power":

China Bee Products Association conducted a survey on the price of domestic honey and imported honey sold in Beijing in 2014. The average price of honey in 1300 domestic honey products was 35.4 yuan/500g, while the average price of imported honey was 305.5 yuan/500g, which was 8.6 times the average price of domestic honey.

Correspondingly, consumers lack confidence in domestic bee products,"Is honey produced by bees fed with white sugar water?" "Is the honey on supermarket shelves mixed with syrup?" From the expansion of quantity to the improvement of quality, it is an urgent problem to be solved in front of apiculture in China.

Eliminate adulteration and make false--

Simple and feasible detection methods are needed

Peng Wenjun, deputy director of the Bee Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that "doping makes fake" is the main factor affecting the quality and safety of bee products and disrupting the bee product market.

At present, the known honey doping method is to mix a large amount of sugar such as syrup into honey, or simply pretend to be honey with syrup; secondly, add preservatives, clarifiers, thickeners and other additives to honey or syrup, and pretend to be "honey" with "honey products"; thirdly, in the case of true honey, the low-priced honey is mixed into the high-priced honey, and the inferior is inferior.

The quality test of honey presents the situation of "one foot higher than the magic"-corn syrup and rice syrup are gradually reduced due to mature detection methods, but the addition of other types of syrup (millet, cassava, sugar beet) and mixed syrup shows an increasing trend.

This is related to the natural properties of honey itself, honey itself sugar content as high as 80%, in addition to sugar and water, minerals, vitamins, bioactive substances and other ingredients are very small, but it is these "very few" substances, is the value of honey. However, due to the cost and efficiency, there is no method to quickly and easily test the content of special components in honey, which leads to the adulteration of honey.

Achieve high quality and good price_

Leave enough profit space for production links

From 2011 to 2014, the Ministry of Agriculture supported the construction of 13 "standardized beekeeping production demonstration" bases, carried out technical guidance and on-site demonstrations, and promoted modern standardized beekeeping production technologies. However, a couple with an apprentice, along the flower source "chasing flowers and honey" transfer beekeepers are still the main suppliers of honey raw materials at this stage in our country.

The "capture" of beekeepers is not only reflected in the four seasons running to catch up with the honey source, but also reflected in many beekeepers in order to improve the yield, the honey that should have been mature for three or four days or even a week is cut according to the day, so as to obtain a larger total amount but the quality is far inferior to the immature honey of mature honey.

Natural mature honey is very different from "water honey" in nutrition, flavor and active substances, but its value has not been reflected in the market. Most of the profits of honey products are occupied by the circulation field, leaving very little space for beekeeping and processing."High quality can not be superior price" is the main reason why beekeepers prefer to spend manpower frequently to cut honey and not to produce mature honey.

Understanding the social benefits of bee industry--

Let bee products return to the value standard

In May 2015, the White House issued a white paper entitled "National Strategic Development Plan for the Protection of Bees and Other Pollinators" jointly drafted by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Agriculture, raising the bee industry to a national strategic level.

As early as 1960, Chairman Zhu De wrote an inscription when inspecting the China Bee Research Institute: Bee is a treasure. Strengthening scientific research and popularizing beekeeping can greatly increase crop yield and obtain various benefits.

"Bee products" is only one of the "multiple benefits" of beekeeping, but it has long been regarded as the main or even all income of beekeeping.

"The important social and ecological value of bees in increasing farmers 'income, improving crop yields and maintaining ecological balance has been seriously underestimated." It is the consensus of most bee researchers and practitioners.

The United States has more than 2.6 million bee colonies, nearly half of which pollinate crops. And the value of pollination for crops is about 20 billion dollars a year, which is 143 times the value of bee products themselves. Bee farmers, while providing bees to orchards and crop farmers, rent out pollination revenues, which account for 50 per cent of total beekeeping revenues.

However, in our country, the huge agricultural yield increase and ecological balance of bees have been ignored. The beekeepers who transfer land are faced with multiple pressures and risks such as honey source land charges and bee pesticide poisoning.

Good honey takes time. Only by reflecting the multiple values of beekeeping, making bee products no longer the main or even the only source of economic returns for beekeepers, properly solving the difficulties of public security, charging, bee product sales, bee pesticide poisoning, bee safety, etc. Only by straightening out the information communication channel and benefit distribution mechanism between farmers and beekeepers can beekeeping develop healthily and sustainably, and the quality of bee products can be guaranteed from the source.