ApiNZ Finds Funding in a Familiar Source, but Will They Share?

The Honey Industry Trust (HIT) is set to come to the rescue of Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ) – for the short-term at least – with a $150,000 commitment to support more consultation with the apiculture industry to determine a “renewed model of industry leadership”. However, similar work has already begun in recent months under the guidance of fellow industry group New Zealand Beekeeping Inc (NZBI), thus the money presents as a fast-approaching challenge to the groups to work together for the greater good.

Collection of the funding boon for ApiNZ is provisional on the industry group’s members voting to keep them alive beyond an AGM scheduled for Thursday July 17 in Christchurch. Beyond that, the success for industry regarding the use of the funds could well rest on their level of willingness to meet several conditions around shared use, presented to them by NZBI, and the level of engagement both groups’ leaders chose to make.

The Sudima Hotel will be the venue for wide-ranging discussions on apiculture industry leadership on Thursday July 17, hosted by Apiculture New Zealand – but will NZ Beekeeping Inc be included?

The honey industry finds itself at this point following a failed attempt to unite ApiNZ with the more well-heeled UMF Honey Association (UMFHA) in early March, and beyond that an inability to match expenditure to falling membership income over several years. Thus, it was the ApiNZ board who suggested dissolution of their industry-good incorporated society at a March 25 online special general meeting. Members granted a stay of execution that day, providing the group more time to seek a survival plan, and now those members will have a figurative bag of money dangled as they cast their votes in the Sudima Hotel Christchurch conference room at the AGM.

A ‘no’ vote to the resolutions to dissolve ApiNZ will allow board and management staff to continue to operate and hold a series of meetings, in person and online, with industry participants across New Zealand over the next three months, backed by the HIT funding.

A ‘yes’ vote will mean nowhere for the money to land.

Ahead of the Christchurch meeting ApiNZ has been put under pressure by NZBI to advertise the industry discussions portion of the event as a joint NZBI-ApiNZ meeting, and also share the financial support afforded to them by the Trust. It comes after the HIT denied an NZBI application for funding in June, when they applied retrospectively for support for ‘roundtable’ meetings on the topic of renewed industry representation, held in-person and online by the group since April.

Facilitated by NZBI advisor Ian Fletcher, the roundtable meetings have been paid for by the group’s membership of commercial beekeepers and held as recently as July 7. The HIT acknowledges the group did make an application for funding, but the trustees didn’t consider it because they prefer applications to come before the work to which it relates is carried out.

ApiNZ independent chair Nathan Guy calls the funds offered to their industry body an “opportunity for operators in the sector to bring their ideas and thinking to the table to find a better way to collectively set up the industry for future success”.

ApiNZ chairperson Nathan Guy says his group is seeking to work collaboratively with NZBI for a better future of industry representation, and a recent funding announcement provides a test for both groups.

“This is not about ApiNZ, it is about the broader industry. This is not just to keep the lights on at ApiNZ. The board is fully committed and fully aware that things could change along the way and we could end up looking completely different. It could be a new organisation with a new structure and new leadership. Right now, it is too early to rule anything in or out,” Guy says.

While that work plan effectively mirrors four NZBI roundtable meetings which have already taken place and which some ApiNZ membership and leadership have contributed to, an email from ApiNZ head office to members on July 8 announcing the funding did not make mention of those meetings.

Before that news broke, Fletcher was scheduled to represent the roundtable process at the Christchurch discussions, which are expected to draw in hundreds from around the honey industry both in person and online. ApiNZ’s chair had labelled that a “good start” for collaboration, without committing to further involving NZBI in the process. Now, even that potential first step in the two groups working collaboratively for the greater good of beekeepers is in doubt and the potential for simultaneous consultations with beekeepers looms.

History Repeating, Or Just What is Needed?

If consultation with beekeepers progresses as ApiNZ has planned over the next three months, all will be hoping for vastly improved results to their recent attempts to reshape the face of industry leadership as guided by the 20-page document ‘The New Zealand Honey Strategy 2024-2030: Thriving Together. Futureproofing New Zealand Apiculture’.

More than three years has passed since work began on that strategy, which included extensive beekeeper consultation. Strategy formation, along with attempts to implement it, has seen $873,500 already spent by ApiNZ. More than half a million dollars of that came via taxpayers, through the Ministry for Primary Industries. The Honey Industry Trust also supported the work – to the tune of $50,000 in 2022 – along with Comvita and Mānuka Health.

Despite the lengthy and costly build up, the Honey Industry Strategy fell flat with many beekeepers when it was presented in early 2024, and UMFHA membership’s decision to deny a merger with ApiNZ further deflated the lofty ambitions set out. However, a person central to the ApiNZ story – past, present and the now-likely future – believes in it.

“The work that was done is still good work as far as we are concerned and we don’t want to see it disappear down the drain somewhere,” says ApiNZ life-member and HIT trustee Allen McCaw.

“There is still a lot of good work been done there that can be picked up on and carried through … We felt there is still work to be done and in the best interests of the industry it should continue.”

McCaw is one of three HIT trustees, alongside Gisborne beekeeper and fellow ApiNZ life-member Barry Foster, plus Hawke’s Bay accountant Michelle Valler in the role of independent chairperson. Together they oversee management of just-over $1,500,000 in Trust funds and assess the suitability of applications for fund use.

Allen McCaw MNZM has a long history of dedication to apiculture in New Zealand, and serves as one of three trustees to the Honey Industry Trust which has awarded Apiculture New Zealand $150,000 to consult with industry, three years after presenting $50,000 to the industry body for similar activities.

Established in 1983, HIT’s moneys originated from assets held by the now-defunct Honey Marketing Authority and are to be used for ‘furthering through education, study, investigation and research the general advancement of the honey industry in New Zealand’.

The Trusts decision to back yet more consultation with industry comes after beekeepers in recent years have been called to not just ApiNZ’s meetings to sculpt the Honey Industry Strategy in 2022, but regional meetings held up and down the country by both ApiNZ and NZBI last winter, plus an Industry Summit Day in Hamilton in June 2024 where the Strategy took centre stage, on top of online meetings of ApiNZ members regarding their plans and then more recently NZBI’s roundtable process.

Despite those talkfests, none have yet eventuated in formation of an industry group that beekeepers are willing to back en masse.

It can be done though – and is desperately needed – say the HIT trustees, and it’s worthy of nearly 10 percent of the industry-good money which they oversee.

“We certainly see the importance of an organisation being established to represent the wide industry, which, for various circumstances, was under threat,” McCaw says.

The former president of the National Beekeepers Association has dedicated nearly 50 years to the honey industry, and was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2024 King’s Honours due to his services to the apiculture industry. He was pivotal in the establishment of ApiNZ in 2016 as a volunteer on the Apicultural Industry Unification Project. McCaw was also the member who proposed the ‘stay of execution’ for ApiNZ, by moving the motion – which was subsequently carried by the membership – which postponed the vote on an ApiNZ wind-up from March until July.

Both ApiNZ and HIT are not willing to make public the specifics of the funding, but say it is for a consultation period of up to nine months, until March 2026, and will not be used for professional costs to draw up the specifics of any new or altered group.

“We’ve already seen numerous discussions held on industry leadership and we look forward to hearing those ideas as we go around the country," Guy says.

McCaw says the funds would be paid out in tranches.

“We will maintain a monitoring role on the progress and expenditure of the funds throughout the project. We will undertake a certain amount of supervision to make sure it is continuing on along the lines it was applied for and were made in the application. If things change dramatically then our considerations will change,” the trustee says.

Changing Considerations

“This initiative is not about preserving ApiNZ for its own sake. We recognise that a new model of leadership and representation is needed. Therefore, this process must be collaborative, and its outcomes shared transparently,” Guy stated in the July 8 email to their membership.

Days out from the AGM and discussion day crucial to gaining access to the funding, ApiNZ’s board has their own considerations to make – six conditions NZBI have put on Fletcher’s involvement as roundtable facilitator in Christchurch. They centre around sharing of funds for both past roundtable meeting costs, as well as future industry consultation, following which they are asking that both groups report collectively to HIT as well as the wider industry.

Ian Fletcher was set to represent the 'roundtable' process of beekeeping industry consultation, which has been undertaken in recent months by NZ Beekeeping Inc, at a wider discussion day hosted by ApiNZ. That is in doubt though, over news the Honey Industry Trust has made available $150,000 to ApiNZ while earlier ruling out an NZBI application.

The practical application of the “collaborative” process sought by Guy and ApiNZ – along with almost all beekeepers, including NZBI – has an immediate test. The answer will come in the level of NZBI involvement in Christchurch and what value will be placed on the many hours of roundtable discussions with beekeepers and industry stakeholders already held. If that test is passed, it will certainly not be the last and history would suggest overcoming the hubris of industry leaders will be an ongoing challenge.

Looming over all that though, ApiNZ members hold their fingers on a figurative light-switch for their group at this weeks’ AGM. At least now they know there is renewed power running to it, should they wish to keep the lights on. How wide the glow spreads and long it lasts will depend on honey industry leaders listening, collaborating and acting for the greater good.

Light flickers.