5 min readAug 17, 2026 07:02 AM IST
First published on: Aug 17, 2026 at 06:23 AM IST
Independence Day this year coincided with the US’s National Honey Bee Day. A honey bee is a small insect that can sit on a fingertip. Why is it accorded such importance in the US? According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the quiet role of bees as pollinators is responsible for almost one-third of global crop output. It enhances yields for 87 of 115 leading food crops.
Bees do more than improve yields. They enhance the nutritional quality of farm produce. If India has to make its agriculture productive and nutritious, bees must be treated as farmers’ best friends. While passing by the mustard fields of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan or the apple orchards of Himachal Pradesh, one realises what these insects can do. They have helped India emerge as the second-largest producer of honey in the world, after China, and the third-largest exporter of honey after China and New Zealand in value terms.
Beyond the pollination service, bees have helped farmers augment their incomes through apiculture (honey bee farming). India’s honey production has nearly doubled over the last decade, from about 76,000 tonnes in 2013-14 to roughly 1,51,000 tonnes in 2025-26, signalling real scale in supply and capacity. Interestingly, almost 70 per cent of India’s honey production is exported ($208 million in 2025-26), and India accounts for around 8.4 per cent of global honey exports. However, the export basket remains highly concentrated: The US absorbed about 76 per cent of India’s exports ($157.8 million) in 2025-26. Such concentration carries risks for India’s export markets, a taste of which was felt when the US suddenly imposed high tariffs on goods imported from India. It was a big blow to Indian honey exporters and farmers, but the turnaround was also very swift in terms of diversifying export markets.
India’s response was pragmatic. Shipments to countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Israel have started reflecting a shift toward markets that value natural, sustainably sourced honey. At the same time, EU consumers are willing to pay a premium for traceable and environmentally responsible products, traits that India’s multifloral and organic honey varieties can uniquely offer.
However, India’s domestic market remains limited despite its large population. India’s per capita honey consumption remains low (about 37 gm per year) — this suggests enormous potential that’s yet to be tapped. As awareness of its health benefits spreads and retail penetration improves, a domestic market can help stabilise producer incomes while supporting premium-quality exports.
This diversification mirrors a classic economic lesson: Trade barriers often compel resilience and innovation. Rather than being confined to one large buyer, India’s honey sector is now spreading its wings across geographies, reducing dependence on a single market and building stronger foundations for long-term export growth. However, unit value realisation remains a constraint: Indian honey’s unit value is about $1,858 per tonne, well below the world average and far from premium categories like New Zealand’s Manuka. Upgrading quality, traceability and branding is therefore essential. Also, price realisation can improve if exports are in branded retail packs rather than wholesale unbranded volumes.
Reforms and investments will determine whether this moment becomes a structural transformation or a reprieve. At the same time, investment in NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) capable testing labs, cluster-based processing, GI branding for unique floral varieties (Sundarbans, Ramban Sulai), and turning farmer organisations into FPOs will lower compliance costs and enable entry into premium EU, Japanese and East Asian markets. The global bee products market (beeswax, propolis, royal jelly, pollen) is already sizeable — it was valued at roughly $12.7 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow, offering India a high-margin diversification route beyond bulk honey.
Sustainability should be at the centre of the efforts. Expanding exports cannot come at the expense of bee health. Scientific beekeeping, pesticide management, and support for pollination services will protect both yields and ecosystem services that agriculture depends on. Initiatives under the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission and APEDA’s export support are steps in the right direction, but scaling them requires sharper targeting, labs, cluster grants, export promotion, and large-scale consumer campaigns (“Honey for Health”) to grow domestic demand.
Every rupee of honey we export rests on a far larger, unpriced service — the pollination that fills the orchard, the oilseed field and the vegetable plot quietly underwrites the food on our plates. The real measure of India’s sweet revolution, then, will not be how much honey we sell, but whether we learn to protect the tiny worker that makes both the honey and the harvest possible. Safeguard the bee, and prosperity follows. Lose it, and no amount of policy will buy the loss back.
Can our policymakers give due priority to these silent workers that pollinate without a charge and enhance rural prosperity? Can they set a target to double honey bee colonies in the country by 2030, and double India’s share in the global market by that year?
Gulati is a distinguished professor, Rath is a fellow, and Adhikary is a research assistant at ICRIER. Views are personal
Bees do more than improve yields. They enhance the nutritional quality of farm produce. (File Photo) 
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