Oku White Honey: The Fruits Of Certification

The product now employs about 3,200 people fetching between FCFA 30-40 million annually into the economy of the Sub-division.

The certification of Oku white honey by the Intellectual Property Rights Organisation (OAPI) some years back has projected the once oblivious product to the limelight. Labeling the white product in a transparent plastic container, “Oku Honey” or “Miel d’Oku” with objective to promote it based on its origin, taste, and commercial value, the raison d’être of certification; is yielding dividends in Oku Sub division and other production basins of Jakiri in Bui Division and Belo and Fundong in Boyo Division.

What Has Changed

More than ever before, the product now sells like hot cake with many increasingly embracing its production, processing and sale. In a chat with Cameroon Tribune at the Ebchio Mfey processing and marketing head office of the famous product in Elak Oku, the Manager of the Oku Honey

Cooperative, Bang George, said the stockpiles the cooperative had before the certification have been cleared as customers stream in from far and near.  “After the certification process, most people have testified great changes in their lives. In the past they will take like ten buckets of white honey and sell at the value of two buckets in the market today.

They suffered a lot to send children to school, pay hospital bills, build houses and run their homes. Today, if you take two buckets of honey, you can sell and do so many things,” he said.

Before certification, one litre of processed Oku white honey sold at FCFA 1,500 and now the factory price is FCFA 4,000. There is also a quarter litre which sells at FCFA 800, half a litre at FCFA 2,500 and 20 litres which goes out at FCFA 90,000. According to a first-time buyer CT met in Oku from Douala, Njatchang Justin, the honey is unique. “I have been hearing of Oku white honey, so I have come to buy and taste because people have been telling me that Oku honey is the best in Cameroon,” he said.

While the farmers benefit from the sale of the product, the cooperative and related groups tap from the sale of its byproducts to make ends meet. There are honey drinks used in ceremonies and bee wax used in producing medicinal robes, body lotions, candles, polish etc. “Wax is highly demanded even more than honey because in European countries, wax from Cameroon especially from Oku, is highly demanded. We produce a maximum of 400 kg annually,” Bang George said.

Organisation, Control

The cooperative has also set up an umbrella union, “Oku White Honey Producers Association” with 3,200 members through which trainings and best practices are dished out to actors for quality and quantity production. “We control production centres and once they don’t meet standards, we close them down and fine the promoters,” the Manager told CT.

Even though sustainable production is being threatened by forest degradation and wild fires, the cooperative partners with some NGOs to plant trees. “We have planted more than 17,000 trees like Pronus Africana which besides making the forest green also produces flower needed to produce the white honey. All trained farmers know all the process of getting white honey,” Mr Bang hinted.

Challenges

Almost everybody is involved in the sale of white honey in Oku now given the wide market certification has opened. Under the certification scheme, specific norms are to be respected but there are people now who uncontrollably buy the product during the harvesting season to process under questionable conditions for sale in the wide market the certification process has opened.

“There are private homes wherein processing takes place and we only see the product in the market. Honey is food and must be prepared in a clean environment; else it would pose health dangers to the consumer,” Mr Bang said.  The honey house in Oku, he added, has been built but still lacks standard stainless equipment that cannot rust badly needed for honey processing.

Source : Cameroon