EU funding for beekeepers, not in UK?

[blackcavebees]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...an-beekeepers-get-EU-money-and-the-honey.html

Thought this was an interesting article, not sure if guys had seen it (if already posted apologies admin)

Stephen

 

[Chris B]

It's an interesting topic.

We do get EU money, same as Romania, but it doesn't go to beekeepers. Instead it goes into things like the bee inspection service. Unlike a lot of other countries, EFB is a notifiable disease and expensive to manage in the way that's been adopted here. Just think about bee inspector salaries and expenses alone - that must be close to £2m a year.
And when we finally get some cash out of our own government it goes to universities to spend on their pet projects - not many of which will do anything but boost the career of the researchers.

 

[justme]

thank you:.) Interesting and bl**y typical.

 

[blackcavebees]

On a superficial level, it would appear that other EU countries are helping their beekeepers expand their stocks and honey production. Does that mean that if we get some good weather across europe for a couple of seasons we will be facing cheaper EU honey pushing down the prices?

 

[Finman]

.
First, think how poor are Romanian people. Russia robbed the nation during decades. They are poor like rats of the church. And you want to take that money to your "catch and release" beekeeping?

Nomadic beekeeping = professional. You cannot keep 500 hives in one point.
To keep 500 hives you need quite much modern systems to run business. The investments to store houses are for example huge and EU demands that it cannot be what ever barn to make human food.

 

[Dishmop]

it goes to universities to spend on their pet projects - not many of which will do anything but boost the career of the researchers.

Celebritbee Dancing.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Ordinary hobby beekeepers in this country don't need any funding for their hobby, most of them already have plenty of money.

 

[blackcavebees]

Ordinary hobby beekeepers in this country don't need any funding for their hobby, most of them already have plenty of money.

But was thinking of those who make their living from bees.

 

[Chris B]

And you want to take that money

No. But I'd like money we already have spent better.

"catch and release" beekeeping?

 

[Chris B]

Ordinary hobby beekeepers in this country don't need any funding for their hobby, most of them already have plenty of money.

Legend has it a former governor of the Bank of England had hives on the roof there. But he probably still got his free pack of seeds from the Co-op.

 

[Finman]

Ordinary hobby beekeepers in this country don't need any funding for their hobby, most of them already have plenty of money.

because wife is in steady work

 

[Into the lions den]

Complex subject. Trust me, I have sat in on the meetings right up to the top level and had input (ignored btw). This one can cure all known forms of insomnia.

The UK takes its full entitlement under EU provisions, which is to assist in 'the production and marketing of honey and apicultural products'. Taken in the whole EU (bar the UK and possibly Ireland) to mean supporting the units who produce sufficient honey to actually make it out onto the open market. Normally the professional sector. In some countries you cannot apply, either as an individual, or co-operative, or association, unless collectively you have 150 colonies.

It is available under 6 headings, but the UK takes all of its help under only 2 of them.

In several countries you can apply for grants for beekeeping projects, which have a minimum scale to them, including such things as expensive varroa measures and migratory equipment (rationalisation of transhumance). The measures are specifically for those attempting to make some kind of living, and thus to reduce dependance on imports.

Several things are specifically excluded, and control of brood diseases is one of them, as these are statutory NATIONAL responsibilities, and the EU money is NOT allowed to be used as substitute funding for pre-existing national programmes.

Varroa control IS allowed.

In the UK ALL the money is taken in by the government, which goes right back to the 1980's, when the government of the day said that 'they did not consider the UK a country with a professional beekeeping sector and that they did not fund peoples hobbies'. If true fair enough, if I build and fly model planes I would not expect the government to pay part of the cost.

So, in the UK all the money is taken in hand and is used to fund the inspectors and the NBU, a measure of primary benefit to the amateur sector.

Call me suspicious if you like, but every time we have seen the inspectors they are mentioning ( quite unnecessarily) varroa and varroa control, whilst actually quite plainly doing a foulbrood inspection. Due to the EU provisions I wonder if it all gets written down as a varroa measure???

In discussions last year it was made quite plain that the government will NEVER relinquish its grip on the EU money, and that any kind of direct assistance to the beekeeping sector is a non starter, FROM THAT POT. ( From which you can correctly deduce we were being gently directed to look towards other pots, such as rural development.)

It was openly said that to use the money to support the professional sector would cost a large proportion of the inspectors and possibly close the NBU. Not a path anyone would want to go down was the assumption stated at the meeting from the powers that be. Right?
Suffice to say the opinion at the meeting was not quite as plain as they had thought.

Grants to make advances in your units OR maintain the NBU and inspectorate with little direct benefit? Expletive free anwers on a postcard please.

As an outfit who is probably something like 220K down financially since direct support was removed some 30 years ago, most of which has gone to the NBU, I am probably not the guy to ask. I honestly cannot say what the NBU (or SAC unit) has done over that period of benefit to MY business, making it a very expensive intangible. ( As it may be confidential maybe better not put here the charge for colony inspections passed on to the EU...........but its three figures for every hive roof the inspectors lift. Details in the UK's submission documents for participation in the apiculture programme.)

Personally I would LOVE a grant to fund putting boom loaders on all our trucks. I am well aware that heavy hand loading creates a physical work barrier which discriminates disproportionately against women, and our experience has them as at least as good beekeepers as men. I can get such a grant in France, but no chance in the UK. Not fair.

In general I am not in favour of grants at all, no-one should get them for these things. However, we are heavily cost loaded BY the very bodies denying us the grants, and some of our competitors get them. Level playing field please, and stop cost loading us with such things as the governmant generated costs in varroa treatments if not prepared to support us in compensatory ways.

 

[Outlander]

So no chance of me getting funding on my 6lb honey venture, so letting me retire from the NHS. Oh well only 16 years left.

 

[blackcavebees]

Thanks Murray for detailed explanation as always. Level playing field is certainly required for our country's honey farmers.

 

[REDWOOD]

And when we finally get some cash out of our own government it goes to universities to spend on their pet projects - not many of which will do anything but boost the career of the researchers.

they think of a theory get some funding and spend the rest of their life trying to proving it

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

I travelled for many years and lived on more than a few of the Caribbean islands and what got to me at that time was that, when ever there a scheme for some kind of large scale development on the islands, all of the funding was provided by the European Union.
Have we run out of schemes to spend our money on here and now have to give our money to countries over seas?

 

[Into the lions den]

And when we finally get some cash out of our own government it goes to universities to spend on their pet projects - not many of which will do anything but boost the career of the researchers.

they think of a theory get some funding and spend the rest of their life trying to proving it

They have actual departments whose job it is to identify where there is funding, which might help them keep their departments going, and to devise projects that can access that cash resource.

1. Indentify where there is funding.
2. Design a study, ANY study, to try to tap into the money pot.

The study usually has the prime purpose of attracting funding, not of helping the bees or their keepers. Long term benefit flowing from the study is of secondary or even nil importance.

We are in financilly straitened times. The million spent on research, and it must be said largely at the behest of the beekeeping organisations with their 'do something, do ANYTHING' pressure of a few years ago, is money down the drain, as surely as if I poured it there myself. How we could have used that money now, to keep many of us going in a disastrous spell!

 

[Norton]

When we had a bad drought here and no crop, the government gave commercial beekeepers 40 euros/hive to keep going. There are schemes here that we can get 50% grant for - but when you look at the pile of paperwork that needs to be done it's not really worth it.

 

[richardbees]

Into the lions den

Thank you for such a knowledgeable and comprehensive summary! I know James H and a couple of others who make a living from beekeeping and was wondering how the EU split worked.

We may have once been able to afford to subsidise the peasant economies of the far flung reaches of the EU (and French farmers) but not any more....

vote..... UKIP

 

[farbee]

vote..... UKIP[/QUOTE]

No way.