Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: It's an interesting discussion that we're going to have here this morning. Let me welcome to our program our guests this morning, pro of the TNT Beekeepers association. That is Mister Darren Mahabir. Good morning to you and welcome to our show.
[00:00:24] Speaker C: Good morning.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Nice to have you with us here. We also have a beekeeper, that's Gladstone Solomon. Good morning to you and welcome to our program as well.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Yeah, pleasant. Good morning.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Let's begin gentlemen, by me allowing you the opportunity to familiarize the listener with you and some of the things that you're involved in. So let's, let's start with the pro of the TNT Beekeepers association. Tell us a bit about yourself and some of the things that you're involved in. Okay, it seems as though.
Okay, mister Maber, you hear us?
[00:00:55] Speaker C: No, this Gladstone here.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Okay, um, he seems to be connecting at this point in time. I'm not too sure if he's there with us. Mister Mahabira, are you hearing us clearly?
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Yes, sorry, I just lost connection.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, great. I was asking you to tell all listeners a bit about yourself and some of what you're involved in. Pardon I was.
I'd like you to give the listener a bit of history about who you are and some of the things that you're involved in relation to the beekeeping industry so they can have a better understanding for your perspective.
[00:01:30] Speaker C: Oh, okay. So my role is the public relations officer of the Trenton Lego Beekeepers association.
I've been involved in beekeeping actively for anywhere near close to ten years. Ten to twelve years.
However, I grew up in Ben because my father was a bikini and I was always around the idea of having bees and honey and all these. Always involved in anything to do with beefing.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Okay, mister Solomon, tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been in this industry?
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
So I'm a first generation beekeeper.
I've been involved in beekeeping since 1982. That makes it 48 years.
I've been in beekeeping consistently through that based on this style of Tobago and you know, I've been around. I've contributed to the start of our Beekeeper association on the island here. Yeah, at the caribbean level we also have a caribbean beekeepers organized. I'm part of that. One of the founding members and I serve as a trustee on the international beekeeping development organization called bees for development.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Now we know that bees are very, very important to a lot of the things that we do.
I actually had the opportunity to look at a documentary that was done that suggested if bees were not around, a lot of things would not happen. Because bees are of course, responsible for pollination and a whole set of different things.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Just to get a perspective, how vibrant, how large, how active is the beekeeping fraternity here in Trinidad and Tobago?
[00:03:38] Speaker A: So let me talk to people. I think Darren would have some data on Trinidad.
Yeah. But um, in Tobago we have roughly 60 beekeepers and we look after. That's for a thousand colonies right on the island.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: And in Trinidad.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: In Trinidad we have, I would say.
[00:04:08] Speaker C: Anywhere close to, uh, 200 with counting.
Um, just person who are looking at almost near commercial quantity production of honey.
We have a lot of hobby beekeepers. That is what we don't have account of industry is what it feel, I should say, is so widespread that there are a lot of persons who have hives and they are not very active commercial production. They just have bees because they have this passion for honeybees.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: However, as I said, anywhere near 200 beekeepers that are geared towards commercial beekeeping or trying to get into commercial beekeeper.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: So these, these bees and this 62 hundred, let's say about 250 beekeepers that are registered, forget the ones that are on the fringe, not part of the counting process and so on. What are these bees? I think the average individual would have. Would assume that you have these bees for honey. Are all these bees for honey production or what else is beekeeping about?
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Um, I would say that beekeeping is not just about honey production. There are so many different avenues that you could look at. Um, in beekeeping, in terms of commercial beekeeping, you have, well, mainly as everyone, honey production. Then you have pollen production, you have beeswax production, which opens another portal into a whole set of other different fields. Like for example, soap making and candle making.
Even like products for cosmetics and that kind of skin products.
The other aspect of it would also be the sale of hives. So there are some persons who also get towards southern hives and beekeeping supplies and anything else. Tune into the livestock aspect of these.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: But the reason, the reason why I asked that question is, is to expand people's minds about beekeeping and all of the various different things that beekeeping relates to. Because many people are having this discussion say, well, it's about honey and honey alone, but it's much more than just that. Can we put, do we have a dollar value on the industry here at home?
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Let me. Let me take a try that question. I mean, so globally, there has been attempts to quantify the value of beekeeping, right. And it's a very difficult exercise.
It could be approached from the perspective of the primary products that are produced. And, Darren, just identify them. You know, honey, pollen, beeswax and so on.
Right.
But that's a specific outcome.
Yes. Take, for example, in the production of, let me say, hey, let me. North american example here. You grow alfalfa.
Right, which feeds animals.
Bees are significant in that they pollinate the alpha.
So some of the value of bees goes into the production of the rearing and the marketing of other livestock.
So I'm using that point to illustrate that in addition to the, what we can call the direct income that would be generated, there's a secondary income source. The people, the persons who do batik will make creams, and they use inputs and beekeeping. Right. It means you would have to add that the contribution of bees into, you know, if you're looking at the total. And then let me go to a factor that's very difficult to quantify.
When you get up in the morning and you look outside and you get good feeling, you know, because you're seeing some beautiful flowers, you're seeing some fruit trees with some delicious fruits that you're earning for, chances are bees contributed towards that. So now that's an aesthetic value that you have. It may be the start of your wonderful day. What value do you put to that? So it's estimated by researchers that the value of beekeeping, they use some rough matrix, but it's something like 150 times the value of its primary product.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Yeah. As I said, you know, it's a discussion that many people really don't pay attention to. You see a bee here, then you hear about beekeeping and so on, but you don't understand the importance that bees play in our everyday life. And as I said, you know, I had the opportunity to look at the documentary, and it suggested that if bees were not around, we would lose a lot of the plant life that we have. And the animals who feed on many of these plants, well, they starve and die simply because we don't have the plants that they use to feed on and so on. So it's a.
It's, it maybe the majority of people, or let me say some people don't understand the importance of the beekeeping industry, but it definitely is an important one. There are some moves to amend the legislation that oversees the beekeeping industry.
And the only thing that I probably know about this is some time ago, I'd spoken to former trade and industry minister. He was also an agriculture minister, Bassan Bharat, and he suggested that there are pieces of legislation that protect the honey industry, whereas I don't think people have. I don't know if it's been amended, but I don't think people can legally import honey into the country. But that's not what we're seeing. You're seeing honey on the shelves of groceries and from all over the place. So, let's talk about some of these amendments to the local beekeeping industry act. Tell us about the act, and tell us what are some of the amendments that are proposed and some of the discussions that need to take place.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: All right, so, Darren, is it okay if I just give an overview of the act and then you can get into the specifics?
[00:10:34] Speaker C: Yes, definitely.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Right. And just allow me, please, to just backtrack on the last question. I think I'm leaving out two significant areas.
Um, bees, the value of bees. So. So, health.
I've over my 40 areas, and beekeeping regularly asked people what they use honey for.
And I was surprised, honestly, by the significant part that honey and bees and the byproducts of honey propolis and pollen, playing the part of person's lives for religious purposes, for health purposes, people get their own inspiration to cure themselves. And it usually involves honey or, you know, the sanctity of the product.
It's a priceless value.
All right, so, having done that, let me just say something on the. On the beekeeping and bee products act and the regulations that could be made from the act. So, this is a pretty old piece of legislation. It was passed in 1935. Right around that time, we had the same way we had about the virus recently COVID in the beekeeping world. Around the turn of that century, there was a factor in beekeeping that was killing bees.
Globally, most countries introduced beekeeping regulations.
We did the regulations that were, as expected, provide for the management of the industry and the sector.
Ours has not been interfered with or amended. I think there was some amendment in the forties.
So. So that's it. Clearly, the regulations are dated. There are elements of it that need to be brought into the 21st century.
For some, you would read parts of the accent. It would tell you there are fees, like six cents to weigh on you and this kind of thing.
All right, so, against that background, and I'm zeroing in on Tobago situation, the specifics of the act given, let me just say, pressure imposed on the government by their curriculum colleagues as a result of the Chagarama street.
Our regulation expressly prohibits the importation of honey into Trinidad and Tobago because honey is a vector of b born diseases. And the time it was passed, that was the intent to protect it. Jurisdiction.
Many other countries use the word restrict but their regulations were so onerous that it made it virtually impossible to.
For them to import on it. So we have this word prohibit and that's. That's a big problem in curriculum. So we have. It's in the media. We have Guyana and Grenada and so on who have been advocating for well over a decade.
Right. To have our regulations amended so that they could export honey to Trinidad and Tobago. We're not going to talk about honey. How much honey they could produce.
[00:14:03] Speaker C: All right.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: And so it is response to that, that the government has decided to amend the regulations.
What I can call the irony about it is that the regulations provides.
It's delineated according to subject matter. There are six subject matters and they are only interfering or amending two.
Those two are the ones that are related to the importation of. To honey and the one that's related to the registration and control of the trees.
Right.
So from our perspective, and this is the last part I'm going to say, is that there are other significant parts of the regulation that need updated. For example we have the potential to export an egg. Right. Adulteration. Adulteration is of great concern to the beekeeping community and to consumers. It's well known it has been admitted by ministers of government that there is adulterated honey on the shelves of supermarkets in Trinidad and Tobago. That has been ignored.
Right.
The technology related. So extracting and treating with honey and finally the control of honey for local consumption. Right. I'm going to say this not with any pleasure, right. But just to make the point that our regulations now provide for the reuse of containers to package any for local sale. Now public health regulations and trivia is that approach. And our position is that I would think you don't in context of our own peace legislation do a piecemeal amendment to focus on a particular concern.
I'd let perhaps elaborate on some of the specifics.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Yeah, let's. Let's get. Yeah. Let's say some more about some of the proposed changes and some of the concerns. Some of what the association is proposing as well.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: But I just want to start. We start by readdressing a statement I made prior just on review some of the statistics that we have. I made a huge error with the amount of beekeepers and columns that we have. We have 400 registered beekeepers and 7000 known heights in Trinidad.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Okay. That's. That's vastly different from the numbers that we had before.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: Much different.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Okay. Let's. Let's get to some of the nitty gritty with this proposed amendments. What are the amendments being proposed? What are some of the concerns of the association? What does the association want to see done?
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Um, some of the amendments proposed, uh, I would say preposterous in terms of not being with.
Within the field of view that promotes beekeeper. For example, one of the main concerns that we have is the proposed fine to be imposed on beekeepers, which is a fine of $100,000.
This is one of the main points that we were looking at the fine of 100,000 as points towards fine, indeed, people's foot having their hives in a state that is not really a group.
For example, if you have it quotes that if you have a hive frames that are not movable, that we speak of the frames that the honeybees build a hormone to store their young ones, to lay their eggs and to grow them out, as well as store honey.
Now, with the.
I should say the modern approach to keeping, um, the hives are designed with removable frames, so you could pull your frame and inspect it and replace it back into the hive. However, the natural tendency of these would be to build bridges with. Between coasts, parallel, which prevents it from moving a lot. And it's just to stabilize the height to prevent the comb breaking off or moving a lot.
If you are found, the law quotes that. Well, the proposed amendment quotes that if you are found with your hive with unmovable frames, meaning that if these build bridge combs, or bull combs, as you call it, connecting cones, prevent any frames from being moved, you are liable to a fine of $100,000 if the hive is affected by the inspector vehicles. But okay, you have something like to address that problem.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Why?
[00:19:06] Speaker C: My view on it is that it is something absurd, because why would you want to tamper with a naturally occurring phenomenon in a beehive?
It is like seeing we should find homeowners if pigeons land on the electrical wires near the house.
It is absurd. I don't think there's any sensible aspect of that part of it. But where do these.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Okay, but where would that proposal have come from? Were there consultations? I'm assuming this falls under the Ministry of Agriculture.
[00:19:42] Speaker C: There were consultations with the.
The local stakeholders of the keeping.
However, the proposed advice that was given to the Ministry of Agriculture at that point in time had nothing to do with that. We actually did not see anything that we proposed to them come up in the proposed amendment.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: So.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: So, basically designed completely off topic from what was discussed in the consultation.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Okay, so basically what you're telling me is that the government had a set of consultations on this proposed amendments to the beekeeping industry. The beekeepers and the association and everybody else make all the recommendations. And the document that was presented as the final or the draft arising out of all of these discussions contained nothing.
[00:20:40] Speaker C: That you all propose, nothing related to.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: You could look at it from the point of view. So imagine it. You have a fine of $100,000 to beekeepers for a list of things. I'll get. I'll touch on the other topics just now to the list of things is naturally occurring things that we probably can't even grasp the idea. Why do we do that? However, compare a hundred thousand dollar fine to a $100 importation permit for honey. Meaning that if I had access to the capital, I could import a 20 foot container of honey and just pay the government $100 for that.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Well, maybe we are seeing here now the reasons for the amendments, because I often say that some of the things we see put into place by administrations benefits somebody, somewhere, somehow, in a very real way, financially. And from what you're suggesting to me, this penalty seems to be restrictive and prohibitive in many instances. How many of the beekeepers and the hives that we have now conform to the guidelines that are being proposed?
[00:21:56] Speaker C: I could guarantee you you could go on to any given April in this country right now and you would find at least one hive with connected homes and.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: And that, and the possibility of a $100,000 fine being imposed on these people.
Yeah, so, so is, you see, I don't want to go down this road, but I don't have a choice. Can this be viewed as an attempt, I don't want to say to kill the local beekeeping industry, but if people are faced with this $100,000 fine that can be imposed on them, how many beekeepers can really pay $100,000 fine and continue operating?
[00:22:35] Speaker C: I wouldn't even say just because. How many people in this country could afford to even pay $100,000 fine? One of the other beekeepers in our association, reference to this point recently, the fine for illegal fire, by law, is $50,000, I think. And how can you compare that to $100,000 fine for not even doing something wrong? That or doing something that impacts the safety or the life of someone else?
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Okay, we just have about eight minutes again left on the interview. Let's get to some of the other concerns of the association with the proposed amendments to the beekeeping industry.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: So some of the other concerns would be the layout of the distancing that was suggested for April setup. So we have the suggestion that April cannot be set to put in 200 meters of a.
Just a neighbor has livestock like a farm.
Your April cannot be within 200 meters of that. Right. So just say we surrounded by four neighbors and we have a square piece of land.
No, if you're looking at 200 meters in either direction, you're looking at a square with sides of 400 meters.
When you do the calculation that you get something like 59.5 acres. Five.
How many beekeepers? I would say not just beekeepers. How many persons in Trinidad would have accessed acres of land?
And to be correct about it, to be politically correct about it, if you have an April, you have to get registered and the only way to get it registered is to have it on private land. Either you own the land or you get a lease or you get permission to use it.
How many persons would have access to these four acres are land or purchase? 40 acres, Alan, to set up an apiary, not much.
The other point would be having a distance of 50 meters from the nearest roadway.
That is a little bit more reasonable. Where you have to have a permit of missing or a parcel plan of 2.5 acres. I believe 2.7 acres. That is a little bit more realistic, but still an e three that is set up in the forest. Sometimes people have re set up in forest or forested areas. If it's usually surrounded by trees. As soon as you come off that, I pray you don't have any bees for them, so you don't have any negative impacts, anything within maybe 100ft, 150ft. You know, the, these, all these things I just spoke about are submitted to the hundred.
The other concerns that we have is that allowing importation of honey into our country would allow or open the gates for disease to enter our country. The diseases associated with bees or honeybees and also spread to our local.
The things that are responsible for orchids and these specialized plants that need the. That were adapted to be pollinated by the local stingless bees that we have with a law and importation of allowing diseases to come into the country that can also affect the local population of stingless bees or the native bees that we have here, causing those to collapse, perhaps you would have immense failure in the forest.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah. When we speak of this, the immediate issue that consumers are going to look at, because consumers not going to tie themselves up with all of these intricate details about virus and this and that and the next and decimating the local, they're going to look at price.
Is imported honey cheaper than locally produced?
[00:26:31] Speaker C: You can look at it from the point of view of quality products.
Aren't the cheap things that you're going to get. Most likely, if it is commercial made up, is coming into the country.
It is adulterated in some way. We don't even have any testing facilities. This is one of the main points that we had made in some of our interviews. If we don't have testing facilities, how can you guarantee your population that the imported honey is going to be of good quality?
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah, okay.
[00:27:02] Speaker C: What about people?
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we're running out of time, but there are a couple of quick things that I want to get. Are there fines at this point in time for. Because you can't import honey legally, so it has to be illegally imported. But we see it on grocery shelves all over the place and we see it in some of the artisan shops and this and that and the next and the other. What are the fines at present for? For the illegal importation of honey currently.
[00:27:27] Speaker C: The fine, 340 I would say might be maybe the cost of two of them. I can't give you the ex, but it is.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:40] Speaker C: Correct me, Mister Solomon, if I'm wrong.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Could I just come in and put in the public space?
What to me is unbelievable information, right? We know and Darren would have expanded on currently the regulations and the act prohibit the importation of money.
If you go on the US Department of Agriculture website now, they started to publish data in 2017 2018 on honey exports.
And you would see listed amongst the countries that they exported honey to is Trinidad and Tobago and amongst over 50,000 pounds of honey.
I'm repeating in a context where there is a prohibition on the import of honey. We raise these meeting that concern in particular during the consultation with the minister of trade and the minister of agriculture there, and there was no response. We would like to have such a matter investigated.
We have past ministers. I can call Clarence Rambarat because he was very outspoken and he admitted, right, that he was aware that there is adulterated honey selling in supermarkets. I made that point before.
Nothing is being done. Why? Because we would probably have to test honey to establish its bona fides. And the government food and drug lab, as I understand it, is non functional.
So one has to wonder whether the state machinery is being allowed to collapse to facilitate a kind of laser fair.
And let me say this, because we almost out of time and I am able to speak freely, I'm not encumbered by any belonging to any particular organization. I speak as an individual at this point in time. I've been around for a little time. I've spoken to quite a lot of beekeepers and the majority view is that these proposed measures especially defines a draconian. They are intended to get people out of beekeeping. And there is a speculation that it is to facilitate imports because there is such a thing as be less honey. Honey could now be manufactured, I have to say manufactured. Produced in a lab.
Right.
It's sold as honey. The international definition for honey says it has to be nectar collected by bees and so on. It has to go through a particular process.
But if we look at the chemical composition of that official honey and honey that could be made in the lab, it's difficult to differentiate because science has caught up on the, I mean, in terms of the ability to analyze the composition of honey. Right. And I mean, I don't have one court closed, but why would we want to focus only on the question of imports, notwithstanding the pressures on curriculum. But we saying, right, we have adulterated honey in the market. Why not amend the regulations to treat with that? Why not amend the regulations to treat with the consumption of honey and how we package money. Yeah.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Amend your regulations to treat with exports. We can export money. Yeah.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: I'm sorry, but we are out of time. It's amazing how deep this conversation runs and the conspiracy theories about what's going on and who's intended to benefit and who's getting the end of the stick that we really want to hold and that kind of thing. It's far, far reaching.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: If I could, one last point, just a couple of seconds.
The other issue with importation of honey is that if you don't have a testing facility, you could have honey coming into the country that is tainted with pesticides and even antibiotics based on harvest from.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: We haven't even gotten to some of the proposals and all these things and a lot more that we need to speak about the legislation and what's to happen or what can happen and all these things. So I'm positive we're going to have to have a part two of this discussion for sure.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Because it is much more important. And quite frankly, it's worrisome that you've not been hearing more about. Maybe because people dismiss it because they say bees honey ain't no big deal, I'll buy whoever they give you grocery or get honey. And that's not the problem. It is. It is something that we need to focus a lot more on. So definitely I think we're going to be speaking a lot more on this matter. I want to thank both of you this morning for being with us here. We barely scratched the surface of what's going on.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
