Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday launched a portal for online registration to achieve traceability system in sourcing of honey and other beehive products, as part of the government’s effort to ensure quality and check adulteration.

The minister launched the online platform ‘Madhukrantiportal’, which is an initiative of the National Bee Board (NBB) under the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM), a statement said. 

He also launched NAFED’s ‘Honey Corners’, which are specially spaces for sale of honey.

“This portal is being developed for online registration to achieve traceability source of honey and other beehive products on a digital platform,” the statement said.

The technical and banking partner for development of this digital platform is Indian Bank. An MoU between NBB and Indian Bank was signed for this project.

Addressing the launching ceremony, Tomar said honey mission will lead to increase in income of farmers, employment generation and boost exports.

The ‘Sweet Revolution’ should spread all over the country and Indian honey should meet global standards, he added.

Necessary functionalities are being developed on the portal to create a database of all stakeholders involved in honey and other hive products’ production, sales and marketing chain.

Online registration of beekeepers was launched on Wednesday in the first phase, followed by registration of other stakeholders in this trade.

All sales transactions in honey trading in country shall be captured through a mobile app in the second phase to achieve desired results in the area of source traceability.

“Online registration/ traceability system for source of Honey and other beehive products will help in checking the quality and source of adulteration of honey. The system will also enable consumers/public to know the source of honey and assure quality of the products,” the statement said.

For marketing support to the FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations), NAFED has developed 14-15 Honey Corners, one each in five NAFED Bazaars at Ashram, New Moti Bagh and East of Kailash, Panchkula and Mussoorie.

More Honey Corners will be developed by NAFED in most of the upcoming major 200 NAFED stores to promote market support for honey and other beehive products.

Online marketing options will be explored to provide a platform for marketing and promotion of honey supplied by the FPOs.

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Keeping in view the importance of beekeeping, a new central sector scheme entitled National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM) was approved by the Centre for Rs 500 crore allotted under the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative for overall promotion and development of scientific beekeeping and to achieve the goal of ‘Sweet Revolution’.

The ministry has been making efforts to address issues relating to quality of honey through setting up of quality testing labs and online registration/developing traceability system for source of honey and other beehive products under NBHM, the statement said.

Source: The Tribune