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Ukrainian honey best in the world

Sadly, no national brand is used for its exports

Kyiv will soon become the honey capital of the world. At the 41st International Congress of the World Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations APIMONDIA, which took place on Sept. 15–20, 2009, in Montpellier (France), Ukraine won the right to host its congress in 2013. Tetiana Vasylkivska, head of the board of directors of NGO Ukrainian Beekeepers’ Brotherhood, told the reporters that 93 out of 165 members of APIMONDIA’s General Assembly had voted for Kyiv. Our capital won this honor in competition against Istanbul (Turkey), Sofia (Bulgaria), Budapest (Hungary), Granada (Spain), and Verona (Italy).

According to Vasylkivska, the 43rd Congress, which is to be held in Kyiv after Euro-2012, may become the biggest congress of representatives of an economic sector in Ukrainian history. Over 12,000 guests are expected to visit this event.

Yurii Ryfiak, communications coordinator of the organizational committee, noted that the right to host the congress will give impetus to investments in the beekeeping business. The congress itself is a profitable event. It will cost 3 to 4 million euros to hold it, which the organizers are planning to obtain from both Ukrainian and international investors, said Ryfiak. Once again Ukraine has shown on the international level that it ranks about the world’s best in the beekeeping industry. Ukraine is among the world’s five biggest producers of honey, said Leonid Bodnarchuk, President of the Beekeepers’ Union of Ukraine and Director of the Prokopovych Institute of Beekeeping at Ukraine’s Academy of Sciences.

The Ukrainian Beekeepers’ Brotherhood also intends to protect the Ukrainian market against competitors, in particular, Chinese and French honey producers.

The rank and file Ukrainian beekeepers are worried not only about the challenges of export or the low demand for their produce on the home market. Ironically enough, one can observe an alarming tendency in Ukraine towards the reduction of acreage under buckwheat – the best melliferous crop as rated by APIMONDIA experts.

“The acreage under buckwheat is constantly shrinking,” says Hryhorii Tsekhmistrenko, head of the Bila Tserkva District Society of Beekeepers. “The actual acreage is insufficient! Farmers find that it doesn’t pay to sow this crop. Meanwhile, we Ukrainians have grown buckwheat since times immemorial. I wish we could win its good repute back. It is a good cereal and nectariferous crop.”

“At present we can only pin our hopes on the world market tendencies. If the demand for buckwheat honey goes up, more farms will be interested in growing this crop,” said Tsekhmistrenko.

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