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Writer's picturePatrick Dawkins

New Zealand Beekeeping Inc Industry Strategy – Competing or Complementary?

Critical of Apiculture New Zealand’s (ApiNZ) Honey Strategy 2024-2030 since its release in February, fellow industry body New Zealand Beekeeping Incorporated (NZBI) are workshopping their own ‘Industry Strategy’. We explore why it was created, what is included, and how it sits in comparison to the existing strategy of ApiNZ.

Running to six pages, the authors at NZBI seem at pains to reinforce its ‘work-in-progress’ status – with a somewhat repetitious title of NZ Beekeeping Draft Proposed Industry Strategy and a ‘DRAFT’ watermark backgrounding each page. Despite this, on September 30 it was circulated to members and those who had attended NZBI “Discussion Days” between May 25 and June 15 around the country. An open-invite was also offered to a meeting in Hamilton on October 5 to discuss the strategy, which was also streamed online and doubled as NZBI’s AGM.

New Zealand Beekeeping Inc. president Jane Lorimer believes beekeepers want, and need, an industry body separate to that of honey exporters and packers, and they are working to finalise a strategy to that end.

The winter Discussion Days saw NZBI executive canvass beekeeper opinion on a rage of industry issues and president Jane Lorimer says these discussions informed the strategy. The result? NZBI believe a specific advocacy group for commercial beekeepers is required.

“This way the exporters and beekeepers would have a separate specific body to represent their needs. This means that there is no conflict. There could be a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between both groups to say that they will communicate on a regular basis on matters that may be of interest to both parties and establish ways to work together,” the draft strategy outlines.

NZBI acknowledges this approach to be in contrast to ApiNZ’s strategy – which was written in partnership with UMF Honey Association (UMFHA) – of an umbrella organisation where both beekeepers and honey packers and exporters are represented. However, NZBI believe it should be an appealing proposition to honey exporters because “it lets them focus on exports and export standards” and “it gets small and medium beekeepers off their back, and lets someone else deal with issues of pollination and biosecurity”.

The NZBI document describes a “twin-set” of problems besetting apiculture, with bee health “which requires constant monitoring” and biosecurity risks grouped together and alongside “the commercial fate of the industry, both immediately and in the longer term”. For the later the collective and individual efforts to support and market honey, pollination and “other” goods and services require a shared understanding of a relevant strategy, the document states.

Drilling down further, the draft strategy identifies areas where action is needed, including a more robust sentinel hive programme to identify biosecurity incursions; greater education around varroa and American foulbrood (AFB); efforts to reduce compliance costs; investment in stronger relationships with pollination relevant industries; and various honey marketing activities from a coordinated domestic approach, to complimentary market access and “marketing collateral development”.

“It has taken over 30 years to get Manuka to where it is today – currently in the doldrums, the word Manuka has not been protected for solely New Zealand use and many countries with much larger land areas are planting Manuka to then produce and sell their own active product. We need a pipeline of new honeys and honey research, otherwise honey will revert to a commodity product,” the strategy outlines.

There is a level of cross-over between the strategies of ApiNZ and NZBI, such as the need to grow value in honey and develop a better prepared biosecurity plan, but also significant areas where they diverge from one another. Looming over the two groups’ plans is the philosophical difference of whose interests any emerging industry body can, and should, represent.

The NZBI strategy document calls ApiNZ and UMFHAs’ plans a “merger” between the two organisations and claims such a move “will substantially leave beekeepers without an advocacy body, as the merged body’s focus is said to be on Manuka exports”.

It goes on to say, “This highlights the fundamental issue: beekeepers’ interests are not the same as exporters. Having one organisation try to advocate for both groups has muffled beekeepers’ voice. It will get worse under ApiNZ’s proposals. Exporters will dominate, whatever is now being said. A UMFHA merger means an export focus.”

ApiNZ chief executive Karin Kos and UMFHA equivalent Tony Wright are in strong disagreement with this stance. Kos says their proposal of an “aligned industry organisation that represents and advocates for all value chain participants, from beekeepers to packers and exporters, will best position the industry in its aim to become sustainable”.

“There are good reasons for this. Better decision making that considers all parts of the industry’s interests will be more effective in reflecting everyone’s ambition to realise a better future. We’ve seen the benefit of that in ApiNZ’s broad representative model and we believe it is the only way our sector will be able to effectively achieve its goals,” Kos says.

Wright is in lockstep with that point of view.

“We are confident that the future success of the industry requires closer collaboration when it comes to addressing industry change to create value for stakeholders,” the UMFHA chief executive says.

“An industry structure that brings all players closer together to share insights, data and create world class solutions to challenges remains the best path forward. We recognise there will always be differing positions, however our extensive and ongoing consultation with industry members and other primary sectors has given us no reason for a fundamental change in direction.”

ApiNZ has been operating since 2016, when it was formed following a merger of the National Beekeepers’ Association (NBA) and Federated Farmers beekeeping division.

“Commercial beekeepers will continue to have key decision-making roles in the new organisation, including good representation at a board level. And as we’ve publicly acknowledged in our discussions with beekeepers around the country, the new organisation will aim to build regional networks for commercial beekeepers to participate in more easily,” Kos says of the ApiNZ plan.

The later point is a key area where the two groups align. NZBI’s strategy document is highly critical of beekeepers’ ability to put forward ideas which shape ApiNZ’s direction, criticising it for being a “top-down organisation”. Their solution is a somewhat back-to-the-future approach.

“Whilst the NBA structure and function was not perfect, we think that something similar could be used to help get more beekeepers involved in shaping their future. Funding of a new organisation that will be effective will be the issue,” the NZBI document announces.

More than just being “the issue”, the document leads its Funding the new organisation section with the simple sentence: “This is tough.”

A pros and cons table follows, outlining three funding options: voluntary subscription; commodity levy; and funding via the AFB Pest Management Plan. The later seems a long-shot, with the cons section including an admission that the feasibility has not been investigated and that a change in legislation is likely needed.

While a full and final Strategy for the beekeeping industry has not been released – and there is no timeline in place to do so yet according to Lorimer – the NZBI president says feedback to their draft proposal has been encouraging. She says she sees the strategies of NZBI and ApiNZ as not competing, but “rather they would complement each other without conflict”.

“Where there are areas of common interest to be progressed a MOU should be established,” she reinforced.

A NZBI delegation met with Ministry for Primary Industries officials in Wellington on October 30 for “a brief meeting to outline the issues” raised in their strategy.

“We will then go back to MPI in a couple of weeks’ time, to see how they have considered the issues and what they believe is the way forward to get stuff done for the beekeeping sector … we have left the ball in their court to think about it for a bit,” Lorimer says.

Not in the diary that day in Wellington was a meeting with ApiNZ, so to what extent the two strategies might “complement” one another remains unanswered. ApiNZ have left that door ajar though, as Kos says they anticipate sharing more on the proposed structure of their plans in the coming weeks, adding “as always, we are very open to any discussions other groups may want to have on this as we move forward”.


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