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Established in 2009, the not for profit Under The Mango Tree (UTMT) Society founded by Vijaya Pastala promotes beekeeping with indigenous bees to increase agricultural productivity.

Asian Apiculture Association (AAA) and Highland Agriculture Research and Development Enterprise (HARDEN), Nepal

Twenty social enterprises were on Wednesday awarded grants of $100,000 each by the India Development Marketplace funded by the World Bank Group at the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal.

Most of these women were honey hunters; they became beekeepers after the training. The beekeepers found feral colonies of indigenous bees such as the Indian honey bee (Apis cerana indica), giant Asian honey bee (Apis dorsata), and the Indian stingless bee (Tetragonula iridipennis). The colonies are found in mud or in tree cavities and then relocated into a beebox.

Under The Mango Tree Society was founded with the mission to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in rural India. The organization teaches farmers how to maintain bee boxes on their farms and harvest honey, and connects them to markets to sell their honey. They specifically focus on the indigenous bee, Apis cerana indica, to increase pollination and crop yields. In addition, the organization has trained upwards of 1,000 women to be beekeepers.

“A road map for beekeeping was laid out as an agricultural input [external sources that aid farming, such as fertiliser] because pollination is 40 times more important than honey. But with the focus shifting to large holder agriculture, these plans remained on paper,” says Sujana Krishnamoorthy, Executive Director of Under The Mango Tree (UTMT), a non-profit organisation that trains small farmers in beekeeping.

The real value of bees comes from pollination. Many important crops would not appear at all without pollination from bees, or would produce less efficiently. UTMT has done studies, carried out by independent researchers in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, which establish the impact of bees on many crops.

In his address to the nation on 12 May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out the criticality of local production. While its implications for industry et al have been discussed, one area where this matters more than anything else is the beekeeping policy.

HCL Grant is one of the biggest and most coveted institutionalized CSR grants in India that aims to recognize the rise of the Fifth Estate – the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) – and support their breakthrough projects reaching out to the rural communities in the country.

The UN acknowledged their contribution by instituting a World Bee Day last year. In a statement on 20 May, the Food and Agriculture Organization urged countries to step up efforts to protect bees—crucial allies in the fight against hunger.

“Bees don’t discriminate between men and women when they sting. Then why should we wonder if working with bees is more suitable for men or women,” jokes Kalpana-taiin Warli, the spoken language of Adivasis living in the mountainous and coastal areas near the Maharashtra-Gujarat border.

In a cluster of villages with even scarcer water resources UTMT has expanded into a kitchen garden project. Apart from increasing bee forage, the key aims are to help villagers grow more healthy food for themselves – while making use of waste water