Iran has made noticeable progress in honey production, as it rose from 77,000 tons in 2016 to 88,000 tons in 2017, making the country the third biggest honey producer in the world after China and Turkey.
This was announced by Kristina Radej, Slovenia’s ambassador to Iran, on Sunday, ILNA reported.
Her comments about Iran’s global ranking in honey production came as deputy agriculture minister for livestock affairs, Morteza Rezaei, told Mehr News Agency the same day that Iran is ranked fourth among world’s honey producers.
The World Honey Bee Day was marked in a ceremony held at the Slovenian Embassy in Tehran on Sunday, in the presence of officials, including Radej and Rao Matta of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as well as representatives from Iran’s public and private sectors, IRNA reported.
As the website Worldbeeday.org reports, following three years of efforts at the international level, the UN member states on 20 December 2017 unanimously approved Slovenia’s proposal to proclaim May 20 World Bee Day.
Unanimously backed by the UN General Assembly in New York, the resolution was supported by all UN states, while 115 countries also acted as co-sponsors, including the US, Canada, China, Russia, India, Brazil, Argentina, Australia and all European Union member states.
Beekeeping in Slovenia, located in Central Europe, dates back to 150 years and many Slovenian families are beekeepers. The country is home to 2.06 million people and 82% of land in this country can be used for agricultural purposes.
As per FAO’s statistics in 2016, the global value of pollination in horticultural and farming lands in food output amounts to around $235 billion annually, Managing Director of Iran National Union of Beekeepers Effat Raeisi told IRNA during the ceremony.
An exhibition of the honey products of Iran and Slovenia was held on the sidelines of the ceremony.
Raeisi noted that 85,000 people are members of INUB.
According to Touraj Saremi, the head of board of directors of Iran Apiculture Industry Development and Advocacy Fund, Iranian per capita honey consumption is 1 kilogram per year, while it is around 200 grams in other countries.
Beekeeping in Iran dates back to 2,000 to 3,000 years, though apiculture as we know it in its modern and industrial form started around three decades ago in Iran. Since then, the number of beekeepers and the amount of honey produced are increasing year by year.
