AI-Driven Climate-Smart Beekeeping in Uzbekistan 21.06.2021 00:00AI-Driven Climate-Smart Beekeeping in Uzbekistan
If we look at the beekeeping sector in the Republic of Uzbekistan, it can be considered as a very fast-growing industry. Over the past 5 years, the number of beekeeping farms in the country has exceeded 17,000, there are more than 907,000 bee families and 21,410 tons of honey was produced by the end of 2020. The number of bee families on large honey farms accounts for 200,000.
In addition, over 700,000 queen bees were bred in the region to improve local bee breeds, and there were 243,000 bee packages exported.
From the abovementioned figures, it becomes clear that the country needs to attract and introduce new modern technologies in the beekeeping industry.
To this end, the Association of Beekeepers of Uzbekistan (ABU) implements grant assistance projects with international organizations and foreign countries.
One of such projects is the project entitled “AI-Driven Climate-Smart Beekeeping in Uzbekistan” (AID-CSB), which will be implemented by the Association of Beekeepers of Uzbekistan in cooperation with ICARDA and HiveTracks. The project will run from March to August 2021. And during this time, the mobile application will be developed, modified and put into operation.
As a result of this cooperation, it is envisaged to develop beekeeping based on advanced experience, through the introduction of digital technologies into the sector, as wells as development of the mobile application for beekeepers that will be an opportunity to obtain data on the environment, flora rich in nectar and maps of relocation and transportation of bee colonies during the honey harvest season.
Using this application, every beekeeper will be able to obtain important information depending on the location of the apiary (weather data, flowering period of plants, etc.)
Today this project is very important for beekeeping of the country, and its implementation will open up wide opportunities for beekeepers.
Within the framework of the project, ABU, ICARDA and HiveTracks will jointly conduct online workshops for beekeepers in Tashkent, Tashkent and Bukhara regions on the introduction of this mobile application, as well as online workshops on identifying its content, time of launching and modification.
The first workshops of the AID-CSB project were held on May 27-28, 2921 in Tashkent, and on May 31 and June 1, 2021 in Bukhara region, where 22 beekeepers took part. Also, on May 4, 2021, an online dialogue was organized with the participation of organizers and coordinators of the project, where its work plan was developed and agreed upon.
The second online workshops for beekeepers were organized on June 15-16, 2021 in Tashkent and June 17-18, 2021 in Bukhara region to test the prototype of the mobile application developed by the project.
In the future, it is planned to introduce this mobile application to beekeeping farms throughout the country, which will be developed within the framework of the AID-CSB project. It should be noted that this application installed on the smartphones can be used by all beekeepers in the country. “To read more about this project, check out the project brief in English, Russian, or Uzbek”.
Here are photos from the online and inception workshops:
Akmal Toshov
