TEHRAN – Director of the Iranian Agriculture Ministry’s beekeeping development program has put the country’s annual honey production at 115,000 tons, saying that Iranian beekeepers have the capacity to export 5,000-10,000 tons of honey every year.

According to Hossein Akbarpour, Iran exported 1,080 tons of honey in the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21 – November 21, 2021), IRIB reported.

During this period, Iranian beekeepers also exported 7.140 tons of wax worth nearly 10 billion rials (about $36,160) to China.

Hosseini noted that due to the high quality of Iranian honey, China has shown interest in importing this product from Iran and this country is a good market for Iranian beekeepers' products.

According to the official, during the mentioned time span, Iranian honey was exported to the Persian Gulf countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, as well as Europe including Germany and the United Kingdom, and other countries such as Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iraq, and Lebanon.

Mentioning the variety of the honey produced in Iran, he said: "Honey is categorized according to the taste and the type of plant on which the bees feed; In Iran 60 percent of the produced honey is multi-plant and the other 40 percent is produced from a single plant."

The official noted that in addition to other types of honey, every year, about 4,000 tons of astragalus honey, about 3,000 tons of jujube honey, 1,000 tons of citrus honey, and 1,000 tons of coriander honey are made in Iran.

Back in March 2020, the former director of the Iranian Agriculture Ministry’s beekeeping development plan had said the country's beekeeping industry is planned to become the leading agricultural sector in the country, the leading honey producer in the region, a strong player in the world markets.

“Benefiting from up-to-date knowledge, technology, the industry is going to provide reliable, high-quality products with greater value-added,” Farhad Moshir Qafari said.

Over the past five years, Iran’s beekeeping industry shifted its focus from producing only one main product, namely honey, to producing other bee secretions such as royal jelly and bee venom, Qafari said.

“Melittin is a very valuable bee venom extract that is currently imported, but the beekeeping industry has the potential to produce this substance inside,” he stressed.

EF/MA