NALBARI, June 30 - The Krishi Vigyan Kendra here has adopted Chengnoi as an apiary (bee-keeping) village with an intention to increase the production of honey in particular and to double farmers� income by 2022.
As a part of this mission, the KVK on Monday conducted a training-cum-awareness programme and distributed 15 bee boxes with bee hives under the NEH component of Vivekananda Parbatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan, Almora of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
The MLA of Nalbari constituency Ashok Sharma was present at the opening session of the programme and formally distributed the apiary boxes.
He urged the farmers to adopt modern bee-keeping technology for not only increasing the production of honey, but also for increasing the output of different agricultural crops by way of cross-pollination by the bees.
He also urged the farmers to take optimum advantage of the government schemes meant for farmers in order to double their income.
Dr Mridul Deka, chief scientist of Nalbari KVK delivered an informative lecture on the merits and necessity of bee faming for increased and subsidiary income, which may be a tool for doubling farmers� income.
He said that bees play a crucial role in increasing crop production through cross pollination. There are more than 100 agricultural crops pollinated by honey bees.
More than 80% of insect pollination of cultivated crops like all nuts, vegetables, oilseed crops and fruits are performed by honey bees. Further, 90% of pollination phenomena of apple, melon, broccoli etc., depend on honey bees too.
Other crops like sunflower, safflower, niger, lemon, lime, strawberry etc., also depend on honey bees for their pollination. Bee farming along the mustard fields increases the production of mustard by 20%, besides honey production.
Altogether, more than 20,000 different honey bee species are associated with cross-pollination. One bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers every day. The total economic value of insect pollination is estimated to be 210 US billion dollars, which represents 9.5% value of agricultural production used for human consumption.
Towards the end, the farmers expressed their gratitude and committed to undertake bee-keeping on community basis in their village. It is expected that the number of bee hives in the village will increase to 100 in the near future.
