Wild honey collection & marketing

Apiculture as a livelihood acitivity has been practiced in India from ages among the tribal communities all along the forest belt in the country. It is only later that apiculture as a domesticated actitivity came to be a popular actitivity for livelihood taken up by NGOs as it was not very difficult to practice. Although commercial apiculture became very popular among entrepreneurs who helped honey marketing among even tribals, marketing of honey per se became a very difficult acitivity as it posed several challenges. The Khadi & Village Industries Commission (KVIC) of Government of India took up development of apiculture clusters across the country and helped in marketing of honey by standardisation of quality and giving it a common brand name with the AGMARK name which helped a lot. This paper discussed the challenges of marketing of particularly wild honey and how two organisations came forward to help in the sustainable collection of wild honey without destroying the honey comb in the wild.