Post-Harvest Handling Protocol for Honey-Broad Guidelines for use of FPOs

What is honey

According to the Codex standard for honey adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, Honey is the natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store, and leave in the honeycomb to ripen and mature.

According to Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), Honey is the natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store, and leave in the honeycomb to ripen and mature.

Honey FPO Programme

The Honey Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) Programme was launched by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare on 26th November 2020. Beekeeping in India is highly predominant in the unorganized sector among the rural and tribal population. Despite having a huge potential of honey production in the country, the beekeeping industry is still underdeveloped. The adoption level of beekeeping is also quite less due to various constraints.

To address these issues the honey programme was designed to filling up the gaps between the elements of the beekeeping supply chain and also ensure price remuneration to the beekeeping farmers. Honey FPOs will also work for promotion of beekeeping as an occupation for unemployed women and tribal populations and uplift their livelihood. 

Toolkit on Honey handling protocol

 A tool kit on Honey handling protocol has been published by the Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) to provide the simple and clear guidelines to the FPOs formed under the central sector scheme / Honey FPO programme and engaged in production and marketing of Honey with respect to practices to be adopted in pre and post-harvest handling of Honey to ensure growing high quality of produce and preserve its quality and freshness.

The information on honey harvesting and processing is intended for the producer in order to clarify the necessary precautions to be taken to assure a high-quality primary product. Only if the raw material is of good quality then the end product be of good quality.

The toolkit provides information on the following topics

• Definition of Honey
  • Categories of Honey
  • Designation of Honey according to Production
• Honeybee Species of Economic Importance
  
  • Caste of Bees
  • Stages in Honeybee’s Development .
• Apiary Site Selection
  • Apiary management
• Bee Swarming and Management
  • Collecting Swarms
• Seasonal Management
• Equipment Needed for Honey Extraction
• Honey Processing
  • Harvesting and Transport of Raw Honey
  • Liquefaction of Granulated Honey
  • Straining
  • Filtration
  • Moisture Reduction
  • Pasteurization of Honey
  • Bottling
  • Labelling
  • Storage.
• Honey by Products
  • Beeswax
  • Bee Venom
  • Propolis
  • Royal Jelly
  • Pollen
• Pest and disease in Beehive
• Honey Standards by FSSAI
• List of Manufacturers/Vendor of Honey processing machines/equipment
• Exports – Comparison of various standards in Honey

To access the complete toolkit, click here.

Source : SFAC