KVIC launches ‘Mobile Honey Processing Van’ to support farmers and beekeepers

KVIC President Vinai Kumar Saxena today launched the country’s first mobile honey processing truck in a village of Sirora in Ghaziabad, UP.

Local MP Nand Kishore Gujjar and KVIC (Central Zone) member Jai Prakash Gupta were present on the occasion. The Mobile Van was designed in-house by KVIC in its multidisciplinary training center, Panjokehra, at a cost of Rs 15 lakh.

This mobile honey processing unit can process up to 300 kg of honey in 8 hours. The van is also equipped with a testing lab, which would instantly examine the quality of the honey.

The “Mobile Honey Processing Van” is a major development within the framework of KVIC’s honey mission, which aims to train beekeepers, distribute “bee boxes” to farmers and help rural, educated and unemployed youth. to earn additional income through beekeeping activities.

In keeping with the Prime Minister’s dream of “Sweet Kranti” through honey production, KVIC has developed this unique innovation to enable beekeepers and farmers to get a fair price for their honey production. KVIC designed the innovative ‘

Mobile Honey Processing Van ‘will process the honey from beekeepers to their doorstep and thus save them the hassle and cost of taking the honey to processing factories in distant cities for processing. Although this makes beekeeping a more profitable activity for small beekeepers; it will also maintain the purity and highest quality standards of honey.

Addressing a rally on the occasion, the president of KVIC said the Honey Mission aims to increase honey production in the country and increase the income of farmers and beekeepers. He said this innovative mobile honey processing van will serve several purposes.

In addition to reducing the costs of extracting and processing honey for beekeepers, it will also eliminate any possibility of honey adulteration, as the processing will take place at the doors of beekeepers and farmers. This honey processing unit will prove to be a boon for small beekeepers and farmers who incur additional costs to bring their honey to other towns for processing and packaging.

He added that based on the experience of the pilot project, more mobile honey processing units, especially in the northeastern states, will be deployed.

It should be noted that transporting honey to processing factories is an expensive affair for small farmers and beekeepers. To avoid high transportation and processing costs, the majority of beekeepers would sell their raw honey to the agents of their farms themselves at a very low price.

As a result, these beekeepers were unable to obtain the real monetary benefits from beekeeping. This “mobile honey processing van” is likely to benefit beekeepers in rural areas of states such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan.

The honey processing van will travel to various apiaries in these states where beekeepers can have their honey processed at a nominal fee which is also on their doorstep. The honey processing unit also includes a laboratory technician and a technical assistant to take care of honey analysis.

It can be noted that as part of Honey Mission, KVIC has so far distributed nearly 1.60 lakh of bee boxes across the country and created more than 40,000 jobs. In the flora-rich region of western Uttar Pradesh alone, KVIC distributed nearly 8,000 cases of bees to farmers and beekeepers, boosting their incomes and increasing crop yields through cross pollination.