Zambian honey producers: a long journey but worth it

The following is a Business Development Update by Rachel Ngondo, Regional Development Executive, Africa

Well I am at Kamuzu airport (Lilongwe) on my final lap of my travels this week. I’m really fatigued, but glad I did it.

It was my first time to Zambia and Malawi and it was an exciting for me to experience life in the two countries. When I arrived at the Lusaka airport the car hire company had the driver, Stanley, waiting for me which was really helpful. We headed straight to the see Mr. Collins Sikajila, who is a programme coordinator for In-Service Training Trust; a training institution that has trained bee keepers and the Northwestern Bee Keepers Association in the past, either through SNV or Zambia Honey Council. This was a courtesy call as the offices are on the way from the airport. Collins has been instrumental in organizing my trip to see NWB and putting me in contact with the relevant people.

We left for the North Western Region at 1.00pm and it was boiling hot… and the car did not have AC so we had I had to bear this incredible heat for the whole trip. The plan was to spend the night in Slowezi a mining town in the north and then leave for Kabompo where NWB is based. At the beginning of the trip, I was like “yeah I can do this…” as it was nice seeing the landscape and topography change as we travelled north, but by 4.00pm I was really tired and napping, though the driver kept pointing out the different towns and shopping centers. We arrived in Kitwe, which is the second largest town in Zambia and also a mining town, at 7.00pm and I kept asking “are we there yet?”! The road into and out of Kitwe was full of trucks transporting Copper from the mines to the port in South Africa for shipment abroad. I was told a lot of the mines had shut down in the last 20 years due to reduced copper prices in the world market. This used to be a busy industrial town, but most of the mines closed now. A few mines have been reopened following the improvement in copper prices, but they only employ a few people. Stanley told me the workers are not paid as well as before and it is really a difficult job…but they have no other choice.

We arrived Slowezi at 9.30pm (though the driver had promised we would get there earlier!) as tired as ever. The hotel I stayed in was really nice with beautiful grounds… but I was too tired to enjoy the facilities. We headed off the next morning to Kabompo, which I was told would take us three hours…we made it in five. Along the way was a vast natural wood forest as old as nature itself. Also a few grass thatched villages dotted the landscape. I was told there are more villages deep in the forest. The main income generating activity here is bee keeping and crop production is mainly for subsistence. Agriculture is not big here and the collapse of the mines affected the community a great deal because most people had left the villages to work in the mines and agriculture was ignored. This year honey production is said to have gone down because the trees have been infested by caterpillars and did not flower properly. When this happens the bees migrate to other forests in neighboring Angola. Honey production is organic using traditional means… which means the farmers have no way of influencing the production. I also noticed that most people speak good English… the guys working at the road constriction along the road and the farmer on his bicycle would talk to us in English. Stanley said most people speak English because there are 72 tribes with their own languages and you can’t speak all of them when you travel to other regions!

We arrived in Kabompo at 2.00pm, thirsty and hungry and we ate at the market place, which was really nice. After my meetings with the honey company I found a place to stay for the night by the river Kabomp and was told it is the deepest river in Africa and infested with crocodiles! No one told me this until the next day! Kabompo town is served by a generator as they are not in the national grid. However, the electricity supply is rationed as the generator has to be switched off in-between to cool down. So in the morning, I had to grope in the dark, preparing myself for the trip back to Lusaka as we had to leave early. We decided to use a different route back to which was a dirt road but it would cut down the mileage by 300km. In addition we had to cross the river on a small ferry, which used to be operated manually. We were the only people when we arrived the crossing point and had to look for the operator.

I arrived Lusaka at 7.30 pm… tired and dusty and I looked like I had dyed my hair reddish brown and was happy to have a shower and meal at a nice hotel.

Well next time I will tell you about my trip in Malawi…