Tsuro Brings Rural Industry To Life

Own Correspondent

RURAL industrialisation cannot succeed if the community is not empowered. That is what a non-profit making organisation named Towards Sustainable Use of Resources Organisation (TSURO) is seeking to address.

The organisation conducted a training of farmers recently in which 37 farmers comprising of 16 females and 23 males from areas such as Ngangu Township, Charleswood, Tilbury and Chikukwa participated. They were imparted with skills and knowledge on bee hive making using electrical powered machines.

The training took four days and a total of 30 standard hives were made. The farmers who were trained were expected to go back to their communities and impart their skill to others. The beneficiaries were drawn from 171 farmers (72 female and 99 males) that had earlier on been trained in bee–keeping from April 3-12, 2023.

The training used mechanised equipment to make the bee-hives. Manually made hives brought a range of challenges. These included pest intrusion, high rates of absconding and theft cases hence the need for better technology to make super quality standard hives.  

Poor hive making resulted in openings on hives resulting in pest intrusion and high absconding rate hence low productivity.Power tools cut with precision, minimizing error and result in higher accuracy rate.

Even though farmers had the desire to have mechanised version of the hives, lack of skills and equipment hindered progress

Enhancing resilience of communities and effective management of ecosystems in the Chimanimani Mountains Key Biodiversity Area project has also promoted the participation of women in bee keeping and subsequently hive making.

The training has been gender inclusive and shall result in rural industrialisation as youths also participated in the training. The cost of production has also become lower hence the opportunity to increase incomes.

The project has the opportunity to improve biodiversity,conserve natural resources around protected areas and create alternative livelihood opportunities. It also increases the package Chimanimani offers through potential for apitourism and production of organic honey since the bee keeping would be done where there are no agro pesticides.