How does the OGM issue had affected the Honey
Sector of Chile?
There are around 10.500
beekeepers at Chile holding around 500.000 beehives. This figures comes out of
the 2007 National Agricultural Census, and the subsecuent National Beekeeping
Survey of 2008 (http://www.ine.cl/canales/sala_prensa/noticias/2009/noviembre/not3011009.php )
At Chile there is no
implemented way to have a montly or yearly statistic of the beehive health
(Winter mortality or the like), nor monthly hives number variation, neither the amount of beekeepers,
therefore most of the “data” comes out of conversations and reports gathered
from the local organizations and in meteorological emergencies (droughts, cold
spells, etc) from the governmental Ag. Service Agencies (Indap. Prodesal,
Proder, etc).
Another source of
information is the Custom Export Report
that can be accesed for free through some governmental institutions (www.odepa.cl or www.prochile.cl ) or by accesing a commertial service like www.idsnegocios.cl
One beekeeper of Chile
through his blog Apiaraucania have been following the GMO Issue collecting,
procesing and publishing diferent aspect of this problem. ( http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/search/label/transgenicos )
Based on this sparse information we can conclude that the
main impacts of the GMO Issue have been
1.- Starting in June 2011 a slow down of honey export , to
an almost stand still by septiembre 2011 (Court resolution sept 6th).
2.- A clear reduction in Price (from average of FOB us$3.74 in
2011 to FOB us$3.03 in 2012).
3.- A reduction of
export towards the UE and and increase towards USA
4.- Highier prices for Fair Trade.
On a more subtle but not less important aspect of the
problem, this market issue made that payment chain got interrupted from the
importer to the exported to the producer in a critical time of the year
(autumn). The need of GMO analisys implicated a delay in the payments (as well
as, a 1/6 increase in cost per 300 kg barrel).
In parallel the Chilean Government (through INDAP) because
of bad or lack of information decided that because the honey market got
interrupted they should stop the help to the sector. The two above aspects, ie.
A payment delay and no help from Ag.governmental institutions, ended up meaning
a lost of future for many small beekeepers.
With out cash and prospects many beekeepers didn’t do the
necessary managment, particularly with respect to varroa and nosema, which in
turn mean that by the next spring (august 2012) many hives or directly didn’t made it through the Winter
or were in really bad shape. The estimation is a total loss of between 30% to
40% of the 500.000 chilean colonies by september 2012 after the cold spell o National Days.
In summary all this GMO issue of considering pollen and
ingredient and not a constituent of honey for the chilean beekeeping sector
have had desastrous consecuences. The beekeeping sector is more than honey. The
pollination aspect is critical in a country reknowed by its fruit export, most
of it dependant on entomological
pollination, particularly honey bees.
The beekeeping sector, because of bad meteorological
conditions (drought) was decreasing it production since 2008 as can be seen in graph 2. This was not
noticed because prices were increasing some how reducing the impact of lower
productions, maintaining almost constant total money. When the priced decreased
and the market stoped because of this GMO Issue, the whole sector went down.
This season 2012-2013 will show how dramatic have been the
impacts. Meteorologically this season is very different tan previous ones. Cold
but wet in the south, Cold and still dry in the central área of the country. Probably the honey bee numbers have been
recovered but not the honey production, therefore the beekeeping sector is
still in an unstable equilibrium.
Not easy times to be
a beekeeper.
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