Desalegn Begna
Apiculture is one of the most widely spread agricultural subsectors making substantial contribution to household food security through providing income, quality foods and assets to the rural beekeepers in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is endowed with immense apicultural resources and long standing traditional beekeeping practices. Recently, there is a growing pesticides grievance on honeybee population and their products decline with considerable economic impacts on beekeepers. To ascertain the gripe, field assessment was conducted on pesticides use and its economic impacts on the apiculture subsector in three districts of Amhara region (Dangila, Guangua and Mecha) in April 2014. Random household survey was conducted on a total of 270 respondents (90 per district) of which 137 were beekeepers and 133 none beekeepers. From the total respondents, 147 uses pesticides and Dimethoate 40% EC, Ethiolathion 50%, Karate 5EC, 2,4-D were the most often used pesticides. March, June, July and September are identified as pesticides applications months. From the total pesticides users (147), 114 (78%) apply before flowering stage, 25 both before and during flowering stages and the rest applies whenever they feel pests and/ or weeds occur. Besides, more than 60% of the respondents know pesticides kill honeybees and results in dwindling and absconding. Three years trends analysis of honeybee colony number and honey yield indicated dramatic decline mainly attributed to indiscriminate applications of pesticides. This assessment revealed indiscriminate uses of pesticides caused fatalities on 22987 honeybee colonies and incurred economic loss amounting USD 819291.37. This study is appropriate and timely to develop and implement effective development and extension strategies to minimize and/or control the ill effects of accidentally using pesticides.
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