Honeyed deals

Thursday, January 6, 2011

compiled by BETTER FARMING STAFF

A Globe and Mail report published today indicates there’s nothing sweet about the international honey trade. Honey from China, often diluted and produced from colonies fed antibiotics to preserve their health, is making its way into the United States via other countries to avoid having to pay a tariff of more than $2 per kilogram. The trade continues, even as efforts are underway in U.S. courts to prosecute what some are calling the largest food fraud in history. This week, the U.S. honey industry launched its effort to fight back: The True Source Honey Initiative, a certification program to identify U.S.-made honey and related products.

The U.S. annually consumes 400 million pounds of honey but only produces about half of that amount itself. A National Academy of Sciences report published this week indicates that “the abundance” of four of the eight species of bumblebees populations it studied within the U.S. has declined up to 96 per cent and their surveyed geographic ranges have 23 to 87 per cent within the past 20 years.

Figures from the Canadian Honey Council website indicate Canada’s 7,000 beekeepers who maintain 600,000 bee colonies generate 75 million pounds of honey annually. About half of that is exported with most of it going to the United States. Bees are also a key player in the country’s agricultural industry with the Canadian Honey Council estimating they’re value to the pollination of crops grown here to be $2 billion annually.   BF