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Beekeeping in the Mayo Darle Sub-Division of Cameroon provides a viable means of income diversification, though producers face obstacles such as limited technical knowledge, pests, diseases, poor product quality, and informal market channels. An investigation examining the financial, human, natural, social, and physical capital of 175 beekeepers reveals that apiculture positively influences all five livelihood dimensions. Statistical analysis demonstrates significant positive correlations between the number of beehives owned and the farmer's age, household size, and monthly income. Overall, apiculture demonstrates beneficial outcomes for practitioners, supporting recommendations for its promotion as a sustainable livelihood strategy in the region. The findings offer practical insight for conservation advocates, farmers, and policymakers seeking to improve local beekeeping practices and manage sector impacts.
Rural communities often rely on diversifying agricultural activities to improve their economic resilience. By demonstrating that beekeeping directly boosts monthly earnings and builds wider social and physical assets, this research provides empirical evidence to help rural development programmes and policymakers design interventions that support household incomes through improved apiculture.
The findings point to practical opportunities for agricultural development organisations, beekeeper cooperatives, and policymakers to invest in technical training, pest management, and formal marketing channels. This is field-tested socioeconomic research rather than a direct commercial product, showing that scaling hive ownership directly improves producer incomes while highlighting market and quality barriers that structured supply chains could address.
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Beekeepers in Mayo Darle consider beekeeping to diversify their income sources. Nonetheless, this agricultural sub-sector is confronted with so many challenges ranging from limited knowledge and skills in production, pests and diseases, the dominance of informal sales channels, and poor-quality products are key challenges in production and marketing that affect the livelihoods of beekeepers. The main objective of this study was to explore the impact of beekeeping on people's livelihoods in the Mayo Darle Sub-Division of Cameroon. Specifically, the goal was to analyzed the financial benefits of beekeeping alongside its impact on the human, natural, social, and physical capital of beekeepers in Mayo Darle. The explanatory-sequential method was employed. Fundamental information was collected using a structured questionnaire and comprehensive interviews. A total of 175 surveys were conducted using stratified simple random sampling. The information was supplemented by secondary sources from both published and unpublished resources. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized. The research results regarding the effects of beekeeping on livelihoods indicated an increase in financial, human, natural, social, and physical capital. The results from Spearman's Product Moment Correlation indicate a notable positive association between the number of bee hives owned by a farmer and the age of a farmer (r(n= 175) = 0.25, p = 0.001), the number of bee hives held by a farmer and the household size (r(n= 175) = 0.308, p = 0.000), as well as the number of bee hives held by a farmer and monthly income (r(n= 175) = 0.248, p = 0.001). The empirical research findings show that beekeeping has beneficial effects on the lives of beekeepers and should therefore be encouraged as a livelihood option in the Mayo Darle Subdivision. Essentially, the results of this research will offer valuable knowledge regarding the impact of beekeeping on livelihoods in Mayo Darle Sub-Division for groups advocating beekeeping and environmental conservation, beekeepers, and other farmers, and will guide policy to enhance management of these impacts, leading to better beekeeping methods. Key words: Adamawa Region; Apiculture, Livelihood Effects, Mayo Darle Sub-Division, Cameroon.
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DOI: 10.62034/2815-5300/2024-v1-i5-007
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