Silence came instead of the buzzing of bees that filled the spaces of the huge traditional farm to raise them in the village of Anzerki in southern Morocco, where their hives disappeared in an environmental disaster that also affected other regions of the kingdom. Experts attribute it to an exceptional drought this year.
“Bee buzzing is supposed to fill the place at this time of the year, but now it spends at a high rate,” beekeeper Ibrahim Shetwi sighs, as he inspects the rest of the hives under the hot sun.
This farmer lost 40 of his 90 beekeeping units in less than two months, arranged in a collective farm in the middle of one of Morocco’s richest argan reserves.
Other families who took advantage of this unique farm were forced to “completely give up beekeeping, due to the lack of potential”, adds Shtawi.
Specialized experts classify this site as “the oldest and largest traditional collective farm for beekeeping in the world”, and its establishment dates back to 1850. But the disaster that befell it is not isolated, as it also affected other regions of the Kingdom.
The official in the Moroccan Beekeepers Union, Mohamed Chaudani, warns that “the losses are huge, as regarding 100,000 honey production units have been lost in the Khenifra Beni Mellal (central) region alone, since August.”
The Kingdom includes regarding 910 thousand beekeeping farms, which are used by regarding 36 thousand farmers, according to 2019 statistics.
But the disappearance of bees this year was so severe that the government allocated an aid amounting to 130 million dirhams (regarding 13.5 million dollars), to mitigate the impact of the disaster on farmers. But the amount of the support “has not been disbursed yet,” according to Choudani.
“an unprecedented phenomenon”
The government also opened an investigation into the causes of the disaster, which was entrusted to the National Food Safety Office. The latter said, in a statement, that “the abandonment of bee swarms of their farms is an unprecedented phenomenon in Morocco.”
He attributed the “collapse of beehives” to climatic changes, ruling out the hypothesis of an epidemic.
In turn, researcher in beekeeping sciences, Antoine Adam, attributes this phenomenon to the drought that hit Morocco this year, the worst of its kind in 40 years.
However, in addition to the lack of rain, it is not excluded that the situation is exacerbated by “the vulnerability of bees to diseases, migration, and the use of techniques to raise productivity in light of the country’s efforts to increase its honey production,” according to the researcher who conducted studies on beekeeping in southeast Morocco.
Bee production increased by 69 percent in ten years in the Kingdom, moving from 4.7 tons in 2009 to nearly eight tons in 2019, with a turnover of more than one billion dirhams (regarding $100 million), according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
According to the beekeeper Ibrahim Shetwi, “drought remains a natural phenomenon, but it is its severity that raises concern this year.”
Threatened Legacy
The disaster struck twice in the village of Inzerki, as it also threatens a cultural heritage represented in the traditional collective beekeeping techniques. This farm is a simple and complex construction at the same time, of mud and wood, rising on five layers, divided horizontally into cells of equal size.
Inside each box are placed circular hives made of reeds, wrapped in mud and cow dung. The farm was recently classified in the list of national treasures.
But parts of this massive structure are riddled with cracks, raising fears that it may collapse.
The researcher in human geography, Hassan Benaliyat, attributes the deterioration of this parameter to several transformations that have occurred in the region, including the modernization of the means of production and rural migration, but also climatic changes.
And the number of families that care for beehives in this collective farm has decreased from 80 to only regarding twenty now.
Benaliyat calls for “the urgent revival of this exceptional heritage.”
“The situation is very sensitive, but I will not give up,” says Shetwi, who founded an association to protect the farm with other villagers.
They struggled to register the unique farm within the national cultural heritage. They also planted aromatic herbs to resist the drying out of the soil, and they are striving today to restore it.
He concludes, “Producing honey in itself is not our goal, but in particular to preserve the farm and keep the bees alive waiting for better days.”
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