Mānuka honey has become a hot international commodity for its supposed beneficial qualities many are trying to cash in on. And Māori are being encouraged to join the honey gold rush.
Last year Native Affairs met Māori in Taranaki with a taste for the mānuka honey business.
Honey enthusiast Ngapare O'Sullivan loves her bees, so much so she affectionately calls them her “girls”.
“I treat them well. I want them to work for me and I want them to be happy in their environment and I want them to be healthy,” she says.
Ngapare and her prized bees joined the mānuka honey rush three years ago, clear about the potential of the hives in her area of Northern Taranaki.
“There is over a dozen beekeepers that come in here, hundreds of hives each. [They] take out tonnes of honey. Bush honey and then the mānuka. And I would confidently say millions of dollars of ‘honey money’ goes from here,” she says.
The honey industry in Aotearoa is currently worth $300 million per year and within 10 years' time is set to be worth $1.2 billion.
Ngapare isn't after millions of dollars, she just wants to make some money from her land without having to put in a lot of capital.
In New Zealand, a large portion of the 900,000 hectares of indigenous mānuka is in Māori ownership and Ngapare is encouraging Māori to join the honey business. She says there are great opportunities for Māori in honey, including “the opportunity to earn money on your own land.”
“There aren’t a lot of employment opportunities and Māori need to create a lot more for themselves and this is a very viable way to do it,” she says.
At a business hui for Māori bee enthusiasts in Rotorua last August, commercial leaders, landowners and government agencies were agreed that mānuka honey has huge economic returns for Māori.
Ngapare acknowledges it can be difficult to find the pūtea to get started in honey but says it can be rewarding if this hurdle can be overcome.
“I know if you don’t have a lot of resource, you know even a couple of thousand dollars sounds like a lot, and it is. But if you can persevere for a year or two it will pay you back. Bees increase naturally, they want to do it,” she says.
Down the road from Ngapare is the Gibbs whānau, who are planning a major commercial enterprise. They have 700 hives.
Their honey venture is a joint partnership with two local hapū, Te Ahuru and Ngāti Wai.
Just like Ngapare, the Gibbs believe the mānuka honey business can be lucrative for Māori.
Robert Gibbs, of North Taranaki Aparies Trust, says the employment opportunities created within the whānau and hapū ensure “the money goes around within your whānau group again. The resource stays there and your whānau gets to take advantage of the whole industry and not just a piece of it.”
Parani Gibbs says the whole community benefits.
“It is not just a whānau-hapū enterprise if you like, it’s a whole community involvement really. Our hives are on whenua around the community and we look after our landowners. We pay them a percentage. We pay them market-rate of all the honey we take off their properties and give them honey as well,” she says.
Raukura Limmer is one of the three whānau members employed as a full-time beekeeper by the Gibbs.
He says, “This is a career pathway for me, it also enables me to engage with my tribe and to work and live off our land.”
Raukura is positive about Māori involvement in the honey business.
“For us, as Māori, the benefit is that we can earn an income while living on our land,” he says.