Sustainable Commercial Community - Based beekeeping
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
How to Create Market-Based Strategies that Benefit Low-Income Communities competition.
Honey Care works with small scale rural producers and beekeepers by empowering them to engage beekeeping as a supplementary source of income. The company undertakes development of the honey supply chain by strengthening the upstream segments through mobilization and sensitization of groups, beekeeping training, links the farmers to credit providers, supplies beekeeping equipment and other associated inputs, provides extension services to beekeepers at our cost, offers guaranteed markets for any honey produced through farm gate payments and downstream by marketing the honey purchased as a value added end product. To date, Honey Care has supplied over 19,000 modern Langstroth hives to close to 3,500 rural households in Kenya. This has led to higher production of good quality honey as well as enabled more women to take up beekeeping using this gender sensitive technology. Honey Care also services a large number of individuals, hobbyists, horticultural farms as well as agricultural institutions who are engaged in private beekeeping initiatives. Recently, Honey Care has embraced strengthening the capacities of traditional beekeepers in Kenya and Tanzania in an effort to commercial their activities and generate more incomes. Today, Honey Care has established itself as East Africa's leading api-services company and largest processor and packer of high quality honey products.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Sector of activity
Agriculture
Other sector of activity
On the mosaic diagram, which of these factors is the primary focus of your work?
Factor
High volume business based on small (even tiny) in
Principle
Leverage the power of communities as both consumer
Honey Care's business model is based on the 'Fortune at the base of the pyramid' principle whereby small profits accrued within the disposable wealt
Name Your Project
Sustainable Commercial Community - Based beekeeping
Describe Your Idea
Honey Care works with small scale rural producers and beekeepers by empowering them to engage beekeeping as a supplementary source of income. The company undertakes development of the honey supply chain by strengthening the upstream segments through mobilization and sensitization of groups, beekeeping training, links the farmers to credit providers, supplies beekeeping equipment and other associated inputs, provides extension services to beekeepers at our cost, offers guaranteed markets for any honey produced through farm gate payments and downstream by marketing the honey purchased as a value added end product. To date, Honey Care has supplied over 19,000 modern Langstroth hives to close to 3,500 rural households in Kenya. This has led to higher production of good quality honey as well as enabled more women to take up beekeeping using this gender sensitive technology. Honey Care also services a large number of individuals, hobbyists, horticultural farms as well as agricultural institutions who are engaged in private beekeeping initiatives. Recently, Honey Care has embraced strengthening the capacities of traditional beekeepers in Kenya and Tanzania in an effort to commercial their activities and generate more incomes. Today, Honey Care has established itself as East Africa's leading api-services company and largest processor and packer of high quality honey products.
Innovation
Description of your products or services:
Honey Care works with small scale rural producers and beekeepers by empowering them to engage beekeeping as a supplementary source of income. The company undertakes development of the honey supply chain by strengthening the upstream segments through mobilization and sensitization of groups, beekeeping training, links the farmers to credit providers, supplies beekeeping equipment and other associated inputs, provides extension services to beekeepers at our cost, offers guaranteed markets for any honey produced through farm gate payments and downstream by marketing the honey purchased as a value added end product. To date, Honey Care has supplied over 19,000 modern Langstroth hives to close to 3,500 rural households in Kenya. This has led to higher production of good quality honey as well as enabled more women to take up beekeeping using this gender sensitive technology. Honey Care also services a large number of individuals, hobbyists, horticultural farms as well as agricultural institutions who are engaged in private beekeeping initiatives. Recently, Honey Care has embraced strengthening the capacities of traditional beekeepers in Kenya and Tanzania in an effort to commercial their activities and generate more incomes. Today, Honey Care has established itself as East Africa's leading api-services company and largest processor and packer of high quality honey products.
Description of the operational model:
Honey Care's activities are operationalized through its innovative and now internationally recognized business model - the 'tripartite model'. This model is based on partnerships with the development sector and communities through mutually beneficial linkages. The model has cultivated win-win-win relationships amongst communities, the development and private sector.The development partners subsidize the social costs involved upstream as well as co- financing the hardware inputs required, increases social capacities of producer groups while the private sector complements through bringing in commercial and financial discipline to create tangible socio-economic impacts. The community then implements the day to day running of the initiatives and maintain accrued revolving funds. The business model and Honey Care's sustainable beekeeping concept have been marketed through numerous village level demonstrations on the Langstroth hive technology as well as triggered by recognition locally of successful model communities working with Honey Care. This has in turn transformed beekeeping into a demand driven agricultural activity in Kenya. This model has successfully re-defined the role of the private sector in development in the south and appreciation of the private sector by communities unlike the traditionally and suspect monopolistic private sector approaches of the past.
Impact
Description of the financial model:
As most of the beneficiaries of Honey Care's initiatives can hardly afford to finance start up costs, partnerships with donor institutions and Micro finance institutions have enabled these needy communities to get access to credit and seed capital to begin beekeeping. This agro based financing mechanisms enables them to pay off their loans while cushioned against the risks of 'force majeure' that may affect production. To date, the loan repayments against leases and contributions to revolving funds have been encouraging. Honey Care is also receiving support from the IFC World Bank under an innovative financing scheme for social enterprises through a mix of grants, patient capital and possible equity investment options to ensure that the socio- economic and environmental value generation is fortified. Other sources of financing for the business are through short term borrowing and overdraft facilities. Today, Honey Care has the largest domestic market share of its honey products in Kenya as well as being a contracted packet for other brands earning it modest revenues through sales.
Client fees represent this approximate percentage of operational budget:
30%
Key operational partnership:
Honey Care's Tripartite model has seen public - private partnerships develop over the years. Some of Honey Care's partners today include the Kenya Government's Ministries of Livestock and Fisheries and Trade and Industry, IFC World Bank, the European Commission, DFID, UNDP, DANIDA, Swiss Development Cooperation, Swisscontact, SNV Netherlands, Aga Khan Foundation, Africa Now, German Agro Action, World Vision, Action Aid, various foreign embassies and consulates in Kenya as well as agricultural colleges and international and national institutions of learning. These partners play a variety of specific roles clearly defined by binding mutually beneficial MoUs. The partnerships have created sustainability, ownership of initiatives as well as accommodated cross cutting linkages and learnings that influence beekeeping. While there has been a risk of conflict of interest because of differing priorities of partners, Honey Care has managed to balance the outputs of this complex yet 'profitable' relationships over the years through a more harmonized common objectives.
Current outreach:
We are at the Scaling Up stage. Honey Care has been operational since inception in May of 2000. To date, Honey Care works with and supports close to 3,500 rural households in Kenya and the scaling up is both domestic and regional. Already, Honey Care has established a fully operational subsidiary in Tanzania to replicate the model there. Honey Care is now in the process of engaging hundreds of potential traditional honey producers in Kenya using a similar intervention strategy applied in neighbouring Tanzania. Further, the Tanzania approach is currently being rolled out in other districts in Tanzania as we speak. Replication of the model will also be a possibility in other third countries should suitable partnerships be found.
How many clients have benefited from your product/service in total? Over the last year?:
Honey Care today services close to 3,500 rural households in Kenya and close to 1,000 in rural Tanzania. Of these, 37% of beekeepers are women and 13% constitute the youth. In the last financial year alone, a total of 1,340 new beekeepers were engaged by Honey Care in Kenya alone in addition to the existing beekeepers, some of whom bought more equipment from their earnings. It is expected that with the change of strategy and incorporation of more traditional honey producers, there will be an exponential increase in the number of beekeepers receiving support from Honey Care's and hence more sustainable livelihoods created and guaranteed.
What percentage of your clients is below the poverty line ($2 per day)?
80% The beneficiaries represented by this category are majorly those receiving financial support from donor and micro- finance institutions. The remaining 20% constitute individuals, hobbyists, horticultural farms and ranches engaging in private beekeeping initiatives and who are not considered as living below the poverty line. While the above is justified, this is usually true only at entry point and as more honey is produced and sold, the beekeepers, through supplementary incomes slowly increase their economic ratings above the minimum poverty base.
What is the order of magnitude of the potential demand for your products or services? Which other low-income groups, countries or regions could benefit from it? Try to quantify (number of clients, market size in currency).
As a result of successful interventions with model communities in Kenya, there has been a self created demand driven euphoria for beekeeping in Kenya. Honey Care has today created a demand in the sector, with a market size in excess of US$850,000.00 in Kenya alone and increasing. Traditional beekeepers, who have been largely confined to informal markets are now being embraced by Honey Care's business model, thereby creating a source of livelihood previously taken for granted by most of them. Honey Care has also seen a need to diversify its products and is looking at other sectors such as nuts and dried fruits as possibilities of the short term. The tripartite model is an ideal structure for replication in the region, not only for honey but other agricultural products as well.
Scale-up strategy:
How many low-income individuals do you plan to benefit in three years from now? How are you planning to scale up or replicate your solution? What are the major constraints to scale up?
Honey Care hopes to be able to impact as many individuals as possible over the next few years through its interventions. While it is difficult to place a number or a ceiling, this number will be determined by the ability of identifying development partners to finance social costs too risky for a company like Honey Care to absorb. The need to identify like minded, sustainable business partners in the region will be crucial in enabling replication as well as the expansion of the domestic and international market to enable Honey Care sell all the honey it will buy from existing and new beekeepers.
Which specific areas - and why - in your field would benefit most from investment by corporations, foundations, and other investors:
There is a prevalent need for financing non - core activities important for developing the upstream end of the supply chain. These activities include mobilizing and sensitizing communities as well as training of beekeepers. There is also a need to increase the capacity of asset finance and capitalizing existing leasing schemes to meet the existing unfulfilled demand for beekeeping. Extension service provision is responsible for a big portion of Honey Care's overhead costs and there will be a need to subsidize the associated costs to ensure beekeepers produce more honey thereby earn more incomes. Further, the pursuit of fair trade requirements for Honey Care which will in turn earn premiums from honey exports and thus enable a trickle down of additional profits for producers is essential.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
The organization: How does the initiative fit with your overall organization's strategic goals and priorities? How did the initiative start?
Honey Care's mission statement is defined by its objective of triple bottom line value generation through its activities. The support and investment by the company's social and environmental entrepreneurs from inception was key and has been a pillar of support towards ensuring that its mission and vision was maintained that the socio- economic and environmental profits realized. While there are ongoing efforts at commercializing Honey Care towards increased commercial profitability, care has been taken not to compromise the social aspects of the business. Honey Care has also evolved into an entity only comparable to a commercial NGO, a rather unique position to find oneself in.
Organization's legal status:
Limited Company
Number of Employees:
30 full time staff, 18 seasonal and contract staff
 | 407 weeks ago Sustainable Commercial Community - Based beekeeping has been chosen as a finalist in How to Create Market-Based Strategies that Benefit Low-Income Communities. |
