Poverty in India is concentrated in rural areas and agriculture is the main source of livelihoods. However, agricultural growth rates have fallen over the last two decades and there is very slow growth of jobs in the farm sector. Hence there is an urgent need to increase and diversify rural livelihoods to improve the incomes of the rural poor.

Bee keeping in Agricultural Policy: Honeybees play a critical role in agriculture as pollinators with four out of five crops in the world dependent on bees and other natural pollinators for reproduction. While the first Indian National Commission on Agriculture (1976) recommended apiculture to increase agricultural productivity, later agricultural policies have not focused on this.

Market Access: A key problem for a primary Indian producer is access to markets. The current value chain for agricultural commodities – from plough to the plate – is long and tenuous, with many intermediaries. Farm gate prices available to Indian farmers are often only 25% of the retail price. Finding remunerative markets is an acute problem for small farmers. Agriculture supports more than half of India’s population.

Our Solution

Bees for Poverty Reduction is the strategy through which Under The Mango Tree targets rural poverty. Bees besides providing farmers with a remunerative income through the creation of honey, play a crucial role in increasing agricultural productivity through cross-pollination.

It is in this context that we seek to position indigenous homestead bee keeping not just as a vehicle to diversify livelihoods for India’s small and marginal farmers and increase their incomes by creating a sustained and direct market access, but for the larger and more important role of increasing agricultural productivity across India. By marketing the honey collected, UTMT also provides farmers with direct and sustained market access.  Upon profitability, UTMT will distribute profits to improve the quality of life for farmers and their families.