Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday underlined the importance of bee farming and how it was helping in boosting farmers’ income. Stating that it was a great effort towards building an “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” he praised farmers of Gurdum village of Darjeeling district in West Bengal.

PM stated during his monthly radio programme Mann ki Baat that “Many farmers are now getting into bee farming. The people of Gurdum village, Darjeeling have taken up honey bee farming and today there is a significant demand for honey harvested by them. This is also increasing their income. They are helping in the Aatmanirbhar Bharat campaign”.

“Novelty, modernisation is essential in all fields of life, otherwise it becomes a burden at times. Modernisation in the field of Indian agriculture is the need of the hour. It is already late. We have already lost a lot of time. Adopting new alternatives, new innovations, along with traditional farming, are equally important to create new opportunities for employment in the agriculture sector; to increase the income of farmers. The country has experienced it during the white revolution. Now bee farming is emerging as a similar alternative. Bee farming is becoming the foundation of a honey revolution or sweet revolution in the country. Farmers, in large numbers, of farmers, are associating with it; innovating,” later he added.

The Prime Minister said that the result of this hard work of the farmers is that the production of honey in the country is continuously increasing and annually 1.25 lakh tons is produced, and out of this produce a large quantity of honey is also being exported to foreign countries.

PM Modi said, “The whole world is looking at Ayurveda and Natural Health Products. In such a situation, the demand for honey is increasing even more rapidly. I wish more and more farmers of our country to join bee farming along with their farming,”