By : Sidiq Harjanto

The women of Sawahan Mendolo village learn together to cultivate stingless bee

Strengthening the role of women in every aspect of development needs to continue to be encouraged. Likewise in the field of environmental conservation. The involvement of women, based on many experiences in many countries, has been proven to increase the level of success of nature conservation efforts. In today’s discourse on gender and nature conservation, what is known as Eco-feminism has emerged which places women, with their feminine values, as the main axis of the movement. Unfortunately, this movement is still not very popular. On a community scale, a short-term strategy that can be taken is to encourage women’s involvement in a structured and organized manner. For example, you can start by providing space for existence in fields that are gender-identical to women, such as culinary, finance and family nutrition. Furthermore, a more radical transformation is needed with more dominant roles for women.

Also mainstreaming efforts to strengthen the role of women in conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, Swaraowa supported by Mandai Nature , Ostrava zoo and Fortwayne Children’s Zoo facilitates the women’s community in Mendolo Village to develop productive activities. One of our priority programs is bee cultivation which is integrated with food gardens.

bee hive boxes Tetragonula laeviceps a species of stingless bee

Stingless bee pollinate chili plants

This activity was initiated approximately a year ago. This year, an initiative emerged to create a collective food garden. In this garden, various food plants are planted, especially local plant species. The main function of this food garden is as a place to collect local food plants and as an educational medium for anyone.

On November 25 2023 we will again hold a workshop on cultivating beekeeping for women. Apart from deepening technical cultivation skills, this workshop also aims to achieve an understanding of the added value in the integration of food gardens with bee cultivation.

Brayan Urip Garden, collective community works in Sawahan, that combine beekeping and vegetable garden

Stingless bee cultivation for Mendolo women is intended for several purposes:

First, bee cultivation as an alternative source of income. Honey is an economically valuable product produced by bees and its marketing is relatively easy. sustainable income will reduce human pressure on forest habitat, that important for all endangered wildlife such as javan gibbons.

Second, produce honey as additional nutrition for the family. Not only is honey a commodity with economic value, it is an excellent nutrient for improving the nutritional quality of farming families.

Third, optimizing the role of bees as pollinating agents. As mentioned above, the cultivation of stingless bee by women in Sawahan hamlet is combined with food crops, some of which are greatly helped by bee pollination.

Fourth, Stinglessbee  as an educational medium. Klanceng bees provide a lot of inspiration in terms of organization or division of labor, leadership, and resource management. Mothers can use  bees as an educational medium for their sons and daughters.

Bees kept around agricultural areas provide benefits in the form of pollination services. Meanwhile, on the other hand, various types of plants provide food for bees in the form of nectar and pollen. Of course, combining bees and vegetable gardens requires an agricultural model that is free of chemicals that can kill bees.

this article translated from original blogpost in bahasa :https://swaraowa.blogspot.com/2023/12/integrasi-lebah-dalam-kebun-pangan.html