HOW WE DO IT
Honey with Heart provides beekeeping equipment and training to rural communities and then purchases the honey produced by those communities, at fair trade prices, in order to improve the livelihoods of the participating beekeepers. Honey with Heart is also responsible for the sales and marketing of the honey produced.
African Parks provides management services on the ground, facilitates the activities through their established Community Extension programme, and provides expertise about the local context.
The principles of our operation are:
- Working with local partners: African Parks and local suppliers for beekeeping equipment, hives and beekeeping clothes.
- Working together: we have currently 900 farmers under contract and buy honey in from other nearby honey farmers.
- Providing tools and equipment: we deliver everything farmers need to be successful. From equipment to ongoing education.
- Guaranteeing fair market: we pay an above market price and a guaranteed take-off for all the honey the farmers produce, provided quality standards that are adhered to.
In our everyday operations we need therefore to integrate The 10 UN Global Compact Principles as corporate sustainability starts with a company’s value system and a principles-based approach to doing business. This means operating in ways that, at a minimum, meet fundamental responsibilities in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. In our business plan 2023 – 2027 we aim to set up a new system to define, track and report on impact targets to which we hold ourselves accountable.
Working with local partners
We work with the three parks of African Parks in Malawi, Majete, Liwon-de and Nkhotakota. African Parks is a well-known and respected NGO in Africa.
Encouraging collaboration
Currently we support 70 communities, employ 7 people and have 900 farmers under contract.
Fair Market
We pay an upfront guaranteed above market price and a guaranteed offtake for all the honey the farmers produce conform our high-quality standards.
Resolving conflicts
Reduced poaching & deforestation in and around the parks.
APPROACH
Beekeeping has been practiced by communities around the parks for a long time, however, this has been largely informal, using low productivity Top Bar hives, and the quality of the honey was poor, meaning that income generation is below its potential. Furthermore, beekeepers have had no real opportunities to sell the small amounts of honey they were producing.
Honey with Heart is training beekeepers and providing them with the resources that are needed to be able to produce organic honey of high quality on a larger scale. Providing an intensive education programme as well as management control over the harvesting and processing of the honey, introducing Langstroth hives and implementing a careful and considered site selection process to increase productivity.
By using best practice guidelines the Honey with Heart beekeepers are now producing a widely appreciated and product of high quality, which obtained the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) certification. CHECK CERTIFICAAT This is all achieved with the continuous and dedicated supervision of the African Parks Community Development teams on the ground.