NEW HONEY INDUSTRY ORGANISATION PROPOSAL
Apiculture New Zealand and the Unique Manuka Factor Honey Association (UMFHA) have shared plans with their members on a proposal to form a new industry body and are keen to also get feedback from the wider industry.
This new organisation, designed with the object of supporting the whole supply chain to prosper in future years, will be better placed to provide stronger industry services for all the industry’s commercial beekeepers and exporters.
The decision to unite ApiNZ and UMFHA’s complementary activities in one entity follows a key recommendation made in the NZ Honey Strategy published in February. This recommendation called for an empowered organisation that could speak and act for everyone involved in the New Zealand apiculture supply chain.
The new organisation, with its working title—The New Zealand Honey Association—will assume the role of the industry peak body, including advocacy, data and knowledge sharing, investing in priorities that drive sustainable growth and enhance the global reputation of the honey/apiculture industry and its contributions to a thriving New Zealand.
As a first step ApiNZ and UMFHA have shared an outline of the proposed new organisation, including its purpose, membership and governance structures, along with a proposed export honey product levy funding mechanism to support industry good initiatives further down the track.
The immediate challenges for the new organisation, once established, will be to finalise a business plan to reflect key priorities of both beekeepers and exporters.
The new organisation will be incorporated by the end of March 2025, and will be operational from 1 April 2025, accepting memberships from that date.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
The apiculture industry has reached a milestone in its development where it needs to make changes to adapt to the changing environment. The NZ Honey Strategy published early this year recommended a strengthened industry voice that could speak and act on behalf of all the industry and address key issues that affect all stakeholders. Bringing the two organisations together is part of that process – delivering a stronger industry body with expertise and resources that can effectively engage across bee health, biosecurity, productivity, quality assurance, standards and accessing funding and support from outside the industry. It gives the industry a stronger platform and mandate to deliver the New Zealand Honey Strategy with input from members across the industry and New Zealand.
The proposed new organisation will have two membership classes. Full members will be those who are involved in beekeeping, extraction, packing, retailing and/or exporting of honey from New Zealand for commercial purposes. Associate members will be those who are not directly involved in commercial beekeeping or exporting but have an interest in being part of the organisation and the industry and are in support of the organisation’s goals. This could include Beekeeping Clubs, hobbyists and suppliers to the industry.
We are proposing that full members of the new organisation will be represented at Board level by four elected directors. Two of those directors will have commercial beekeeping experience and two will have exporting experience. This reflects the equal importance of both beekeeping and exporting in driving sustainable growth in our sector. In addition, the new organisation is committed to supporting a model of regional engagement for commercial beekeepers.
At this stage the membership fee for both full and associate members is likely to be around $300 annually. This is a flat fee and reflects a change from the current Apiculture NZ fees, where a fee based on the number of hives the member operated was charged in addition to a membership fee. The reason for introducing a flat fee is to ensure membership is affordable to as many commercial beekeepers as possible.
Honey exporters will pay the annual membership fee, just as non-exporters will. If they are current UMF licence holders, they will continue to pay UMF levies as they do now. For exporters of non-UMF monofloral mānuka honey, we are proposing a levy payable on product exported.
No levies are being proposed for beekeepers who do not export monofloral mānuka honey. If there is significant interest in implementing a levy for beekeepers however, the Association would consider one, for the purpose of funding dedicated projects of importance to beekeeping.
In the initial stages of the development of the new Association, unless the members direct otherwise, levies will not apply to beekeepers or non-mānuka honey producers (likely to be a period of several years).
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