Honeybees: The Tiny Guardians of Nature Protecting Lango Farmers Against Climate Change

14 August 2026, 7:58 pm

By Micheal Ojok
 
As climate change makes farming a challenge for people living in Uganda’s Lango sub-region, some of the affected farmers are turning to new agribusiness strategies which they consider more profitable and resilient to changing weather patterns.
 
One such enterprise is commercial bee keeping, once regarded as a small-scale rural activity pursued as a hobby by a few selected farmers.

Today, hundreds of households have taken up beekeeping as a major source of employment, helping them survive the impacts of climate change and improve their household incomes.
 
The main pull factor for young people is the increasing national and international demand for honey and other bee products such as beeswax, propolis, and bee venom amongst others.
 
In Lira district, where most of these farmers are located, the district entomology office has informed the population engaged in beekeeping that insect wildlife such as bees is fundamental to the proper functioning of the land and freshwater ecosystems on which food production depends.
 
Responsible for crop pollination and seed spreading, bees support the ecological processes necessary to produce medicines, fibers and nutritional human food alongside the generation of revenue for households.

The protection of bees therefore encourages farmers to conserve trees and water resources and adopt sustainable farming practices considered resilient to climate change.
 
Dickens Obote, a resident of Abwong B Village in Adyaka Parish, Agali Sub-county in Lira district opted to engage in beekeeping after seeing his neighbours transform their livelihoods through honey production.
 
“I began with just three traditional beehives, which I later expanded to 14 to increase my yields,” said Obote, a youth in his thirties.

To improve the yields of his honey production, Obote integrated agroforestry into his project site by planting flowering trees alongside food crops, with his hives sitting beneath their canopies.
 
“The goal is for the bee colonies to travel short distances looking for pollen grains and nectars for their honey production and survival,” the district entomology office told us during a community visit.
 
The village suffered massive tree loss due to the charcoal trade as residents began to resettle in the area, following the end of two decades of Lord’s Resistance Army-led atrocities that displaced an estimated 1.9 million people in the region in 2009.
 
The few existing trees stand now under protection and Obote says they have significantly supported the restoration of the soil fertility in the area as food crops can now better perform.

“The rainfall pattern of the area had suffered distortion,” he explained.
 
According to Obote, soil erosion had increased in the area before they introduced several fast-maturing tree species recommended by the entomology office for their bees.

Over local radio and in village meetings, the community’s cultural institution also preached about the protection of indigenous tree varieties, some of which they harvested for herbal medicines.
 
Tiny Workers
 
Bees are important allies of farmers in maintaining food production in a changing climate.

For farmers in Lango sub-region, adapting to the change involves more than surviving the extreme weather patterns manifesting in forms of prolonged dry spells, floods, declining soil fertility and erratic rainfall.

Their focus is therefore to build livelihoods and ecosystems that can better cope with environmental change while supporting their rain-fed agrifood systems.
 
Joan Akello, a resident of Abeli B Village in Gomi Parish, Agali Sub-county, was drawn to beekeeping for its nutritional and medicinal value.
 
“I joined Oryemcan United Beekeepers’ group hoping to kick poverty out of my household.

That year, crops had failed due to an acute dry spell.

Those who had bee hives were the ultimate survivors,” She explained while pointing at her local hives.
 
In the Lango dialect, the word Oryemcan literally translates to ‘kicking poverty out of our communities’.

For many years, the farmers group operated as an informal set up, unable to benefit from agribusiness loans or insurance.

Marketing honey was also informal, and many buyers challenged them about honey’s quality and safety from environmental contaminants such as agrochemicals.
 
“It was not easy to transform from small scale causal enterprise to a dependable source of income on which our families could depend for income and other basic needs,” Akello stated.
 
Weather variability — especially the dry spells that descended on the village each year beginning in 2023 — decimated the flowering vegetation on which bees depend for pollen.
 
The small nearby streams from which bees collected water, a critical ingredient for honey production, also dried up.

Some colonies migrated, reducing the quantity of honey produced by the farmer group, especially for those farmers who could not supply water to their bees.
 
Within the farmer group, local beehives — majority of them made from hollow sections of round dry palm tree trunks — are hung between natural tree branches and are often scattered over a large area of land.

This makes supervision, maintenance, and pest control harder than for farmers using the modern Kenyan Top Bar beehives.
 
To formalize the farmer group into a bankable project, the Climate Smart Jobs, an agribusiness project seeking to transform small-scale agriculture initiatives in Northern Uganda into larger, more profitable ventures, partnered with experts in the same field known as commercial agents to support such groups.

The commercial agents train the beekeeping groups in a range of areas, including conservation agriculture practices such as safeguarding bee colonies and the environment by avoiding the harmful use of agrochemicals near wetlands, beehives, and water sources.
 
Another key element, Akello says, is the protection of wetlands to regulate water flow, reduce flooding, support rainfall, and sustain biodiversity.
 
Alyao Dan of Alikpot Village in Adyaka Parish is another beekeeper who started with just two traditional beehives before slowly expanding this enterprise to five hives.

His annual production is around 20 kilograms of crude honey, enough to earn him about 700,000 Uganda shillings.
 
Alyao was inspired to venture into beekeeping during a visit to the Apiary of an experienced beekeeper, Gilbert Ebong, also in Lira district.

Using the income earned from selling honey over many years, Alyao built the structure for his family while acquiring other technical skills in bee farming.
 
Gilbert Ebong is now a prominent Commercial Agent under the Climate Smart Jobs Project, based in Erute South County in Lira district.
 
“The potential for bee farming in this region is largely untapped. This is why we are training farmers to learn the modern practices of bee keeping,” he says adding that “we teach them how to access markets while providing technical support to improve productivity, product quality and incomes at the same time.”
 
Bees are guardians of nature, Ebong told Oryemcan United Beekeepers Group, with 40 members.

Of the 40, 50 percent are youth while 30 percent are women and the 20 percent are men.
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Ebong encouraged the group to recruit young people into commercial beekeeping to improve their household incomes while creating employment opportunities for the young population of Uganda.

Youth unemployment in Uganda is about 68 percent according to a Uganda National Bureau of Statistics Report of 2025.
 
Robert Okodia, the proprietor of Barkman Best-Bees Company Limited, says “commercial beekeeping goes beyond honey production, since it creates green jobs, restores ecosystems and strengthens climate resilience.”
 
According to Okodia, the company works with more than 10,000 farmers across the West Nile, Lango, Acholi, Teso and Karamoja sub-regions to develop a complete honey value chain covering production, aggregation, processing, value addition and export through its processing facility located in Lira district.
 
According to Okodia, Uganda consumes about 12,000 metric tonnes of honey a year, but production remains below demand, presenting enormous opportunities for farmers.
 

The East African region, Okodia says, consumes approximately 120,000 metric tonnes of honey a year, while the global demand exceeds two million metric tonnes.
 
“A single farmer managing 20 modern beehives can harvest about 200 kilograms of honey worth approximately UGX 2 million at farm-gate prices.,” Okodia said with a smile.
 
Additional products such as bee wax, propolis and bee venom provide further income, making beekeeping one of the most profitable nature-based enterprises.
 
Going Digital
 
Through the Climate Smart Jobs Project, modern skills for beekeeping are becoming available and accessible even to rural farmers with smart mobile technologies through a platform known as WIIGOT.
 
Although still under development, the digital technology is already providing extension services, training, and information on equipment suppliers and markets to small holder farmers with access to it during the testing phase.
 
“The initiative purposely targets women and youth,” according to Ebong. It will be equipped with translated information in the Lango dialect. 
 
Under the initiative, more than 2,000 women have been enrolled under the Female Apiary Managers Programme, while over 4,000 young people are working as out-growers and field agents, accounting for nearly half of the company’s production network.
 
The Lira District Entomology Officer, John Bosco Okello, says the district has 822 registered beekeepers organized into 102 farmer groups managing 8,849 beehives.
 
Okello says the sector is growing thanks to continued investment by government and development partners, through the distribution of modern Kenya Top Bar hives, harvesting equipment, processing facilities and farmer training.
 

According to Okello, “beekeeping is increasingly attracting young people because it requires relatively low start-up capital while providing attractive returns.”
 
He notes that bees play a critical role in pollinating crops, boosting agricultural productivity and strengthening food security.
 
Despite this progress, he says the industry continues to face challenges, including pesticide misuse by crop farmers, which destroys bee colonies, as well as the effects of climate change on honey production.
 
These challenges are being addressed by coordinated agricultural extension workers who promote organic pest management and encourage farmers to plant flowering tree species such as Calliandra near their bee keeping sites.
 
They also advise beekeepers to establish apiaries away from schools, hospitals and busy roads to provide a safe environment for their bees.
 
According to data from the Uganda Investment Authority, the country produces between 100,000 to 200,000 metric tonnes of honey annually.

In Lango, the honeybee may be small, but its contribution to the environment and food production is significant.

From encouraging tree conservation to creating alternative sources of livelihoods, beekeeping is helping farmers build strong resilience to climate change.

This story was produced with support from InfoNile and edited by Maddison Erdall, Carbon Carbon Science Team Lead at Centigrade