With the presence of six thousand beekeepers throughout Iraq

With 190,000 beehives that produce about 800 tons of honey per year

The Agricultural Engineers Syndicate will hold a meeting in the near future, for the purpose of setting the mechanism and distributing supplies among beekeepers for free

The Iraqi Mail website reported, citing a source from the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture,  that Iraq has become self-sufficient in honey and there is a surplus in honey production.

 

This was mentioned to Mail website by the director of the bee department in the Agricultural Protection Department in the Ministry, Hashem Najm Khudair, and he said, “There is coordination with the agricultural directorates to obtain a database to know the number of beekeepers and the number of hives in Iraq, as well as to know the amount of honey production,” and he pointed to “The number of certified and non-certified beekeepers in 2023 reached approximately six thousand beekeepers, while the number of beehives reached approximately (190) thousand hives after it was sixty thousand hives in 2017, and that the amount of honey production during the year 2023 reached approximately (850) ) tons, with the cell production rate reaching approximately five kilograms.

 

With the increase and spread of honey production, the average price of a kilo of honey has become twenty thousand dinars, but some types of honey still have fantastic prices exceeding three hundred thousand dinars. There is also a special honey mixed with royal jelly whose price may exceed one million dinars.

 

Among the most important diseases that affect bees and require control are (Varroa pest) and (Nosema disease), in addition to the threat from insects and birds that require control and elimination in order to maintain the quality of honey and taste.

 

The news reports that there is a project submitted by the Iraqi Agricultural Engineers Syndicate, for which the approval of Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani has been obtained, for the purpose of distributing some supplies for bees for free. In order to implement this project, the Agricultural Engineers Syndicate will hold a meeting during the coming period, for the purpose of setting the mechanism and distributing supplies among beekeepers.

 

The report pointed out that the Bee Department in the Ministry of Agriculture is working to train specialized personnel to carry out the artificial insemination process to produce fertilized queens through laboratory equipment located in Al-Rashidiya and in the Holy Karbala Governorate, and that the fertilized queens will be distributed among beekeepers at the appropriate time, for the purpose of preserving the hives and developing the Bee sector in Iraq.

 

It appears that the Ministry has drawn up plans to transfer beehives from one governorate to another according to the pasture, except for the governorates of the Kurdistan region, through coordination with the Office of Permits and Security Information in the Minister’s Office, to issue a letter from the Department of the Directorate of Agriculture for the beekeeper enabling him to transfer his hives from one governorate to another. .

 

There remains the problem of adulterated honey, and it is the duty of the Directorates of Agriculture, National Security, and Economic Security to work seriously and bear responsibility for monitoring adulterated honey in the markets and taking legal measures against violators. For this reason, the Ministry of Agriculture lacks laboratories for these tests, so it will benefit from the quality laboratories in the Ministry of Health to examine the quality of honey.

It is noteworthy that honey from the Kurdistan region of Iraq has participated in a number of festivals and exhibitions and has won international awards and certificates for quality and purity.

 

Iraq in general can provide many types of honey through geographical diversity in food sources for bees, from the extreme desert in the south and the palm, orange and grape groves in the center all the way to the green plains at the top of the snow-covered mountains in the summer in the far north.

 

The honey bee sector lives in ambiguity due to the lack of a national union in this industry, as there are a group of associations in some regions and governorates, with the presence of companies specialized in producing and trading honey. But it lacks decision-making and action at the level of Iraq, and the government’s continued control over this sector will not help in its development and in imitating the technology and development taking place in the world.