Standard Bank Luju Food & Lifestyle Festival & partners support Eswatini bee farming
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| As part of the Standard Bank Luju Food & Lifestyle Festival’s commitment to supporting sustainable farming and community development, a portion of every ticket sold for the festival will go towards supporting and setting up beekeeping farms in Eswatini. This means that everyone who buys a ticket to the festival will be directly uplifting small-scale bee farmers and related services in developing areas in Eswatini, with E10 from each ticket committed to the beekeeping project. The Standard Bank Luju Food & Lifestyle Festival, World Vision Eswatini and Emlembe Beverages, which produces healthy organic honey, have partnered together to use their skills and expertise to enhance the livelihoods of small-scale beekeeping farmers and improve local honey production, taste, marketing and bee colony conservation in the Lobamba Lomdzala and Mahlangatsha areas. “Luju” means “honey” and so it was only natural that the festival should support bee farmers. Bees are essential to farming; fertilizing many crops as well as providing delicious, healthy, golden honey that can be used for food, medicine and cosmetics. They are also very vulnerable to climate change and pollution, which is why it is important to promote a robust bee industry in Eswatini. The aims of the programme are to support beekeeping and honey production with funding, equipment, services, market linkages and technical support so as to market and supply pure organic and clean honey, as well as beekeeping services such as crop pollination, as a means of making a livelihood for small-scale farmers, and furthering self-sufficiency in the honey industry in Eswatini. The project will collaborate with the communities in Lobamba Lomdzala and Mahlangatsha., to ensure that the most vulnerable groups are the main beneficiaries. World Vision Eswatini, an international humanitarian organisation whose focus is on the transformational development of vulnerable communities, for the benefit of children, will facilitate, implement, and supervise the project from an existing World Vision beekeeping project in Mahlangatsha, with the aim of setting up small-scale bee farming in Lobamba Lomdzala, where the festival is held annually. World Vision will also provide equipment and protective clothing required for beekeeping, such as bee suits, veils, gloves and gumboots. Emlembe Beverages, a bottled spring water and organic honey supplier in Eswatini with a commitment to source local and promote Fair Trade principles, will provide technical expertise and equipment for honey production, mentorship and market linkages, including services ranging from tasting, packaging and marketing to beehive relocation transport services and securing apiary sites at orchard farms. For more information, visit the official lujufestival.com website, where you will also find links to purchase your festival and camping tickets. Look out for updates with the Luju Buzz on social platforms: @lujufestival on Facebook & Twitter, and @luju_festival on Instagram. |
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