Wednesday, July 11, 2012 -
Tajikistan’s state-controlled bee farmers hope to produce a little more than 3,000 tons of honey this year, the Tajik agriculture ministry said on Wednesday.
The projected output will be slightly higher than the 2,935 tons honey farms managed to produce in 2011.
The industry is still suffering from a difficult year, owing to unfavorable environmental conditions that lowered output.
"Reduction in the production of honey in 2011 was associated with many factors, including long dust storms that caused the deaths of bee colonies in many parts of the country," the locally based independent news agency Avesta.tj quoted the agriculture ministry official as saying.
Tajikistan is holding talks with the German Society for Technical Cooperation on establishing a $150,000 honey processing plant this year, he said. The factory will be installed with German equipment designed to filter, clean, and package the honey.
Yet, exports remain a small fraction of total production.
"Only over the last three years has there been a steady export of honey to Russia. Even so, exports to Russia still do not exceed 30 tons per year,” the official said.
Tajikistan also exports far smaller quantities of honey to Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and the United Arab Emirates.