Project titled “AI-Driven Climate Smart Beekeeping for Women Uzbekistan” 09.09.2021 00:00Project titled “AI-Driven Climate Smart Beekeeping for Women Uzbekistan”
- Dear Akmal Akramovich, can you tell us about the work done since the establishment of the Association of Beekeepers of Uzbekistan?
“The Association of Beekeepers of Uzbekistan was established in 2017. Since its inception, the number of beekeeping farms in the country has increased to 17 thousand, and the number of bee colonies to 907 thousand, and by the end of 2020, 21 410 tons of honey were produced.
In addition, more than 700,000 queen bees have been bred in the region to improve local breeding population and 243,000 bee packages were exported.
Could you please tell us about the relations of the Association with foreign countries and international organizations?
- The Association of Beekeepers of Uzbekistan is a member of the World Association of Beekeepers "Apimondia". Moreover, it established good cooperation with the CIS countries, the Russian Federation, Germany and other countries. In particular, cooperation projects are being implemented to develop beekeeping based on the grant aid received from FAO, ICARDA and other donors.
- Very good, please tell us about the project implemented in cooperation with ICARDA.
- In our country, as in all areas, there is a need to attract and introduce new modern technologies in the field of beekeeping. To this end, the Association of Beekeepers of Uzbekistan (ABU) is working on the basis of grants received from several international organizations. We can say about the project titled “AI-Driven Climate-Smart Beekeeping for Women in Uzbekistan (AID-CSB)” being implemented by ICARDA in cooperation with ABU and HiveTracks.
The objective of the project is the introduction of innovative technologies in beekeeping, i.e. digitization of beekeeping in the country, which will help women and men beekeepers to obtain information about the environment, nectar-rich flora and weather, and the main thing is that the mobile application for beekeepers based on smartphone will be developed.
This application will provide the important information (weather, flowering period of plants and other data) for each beekeeper depending on the location of the apiary.
Today digitization of beekeeping is important for the beekeeping sector of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and its introduction will create ample opportunities for beekeeping.
-When and where will the project be implemented?
- The project is planned to be implemented in March-December 2021 in cooperation with ICARDA, Hivetracks and the Association of Beekeepers of Uzbekistan. During this period, the mobile application will be localized, improved and launched.
Women beekeepers from Tashkent and Bukhara Regions will be involved in this process.
It should be noted that the project mainly involves women beekeepers and designed for them in order to facilitate activities of the existing women beekeepers in the country.
- What has been done so far in the project?
The online interviews were arranged on 27-28 May 2021 for groups of women beekeepers from Tashkent City and Tashkent Region and for groups of women beekeepers from Bukhara Region held on 31May – 1 June 2021 within the framework of AID-CSB project in order to be familiarized with the beekeeping sector of Uzbekistan. There were 22 beekeepers who took part in those interviews.
On June 4, 2021, there was a video meeting organized by FAO office in Uzbekistan in cooperation with ICARDA, wherein information about the work carried out by FAO project was presented and areas of cooperation between two projects were identified.
Later prototype testing meetings with Tashkent City and Tashkent Region women beekeepers were held on 15-16 June 2021 and for groups of women beekeepers from Bukhara Region organized on 17-18 June 2021 where the beekeepers tested the mobile application prototype and suggestions and comments on the content of the mobile application, its launch, modification and attachments were summarized.
Once the app is released as part of the project, any beekeeper in the country will have access to the app on their smartphones.
Photo. Beekeepers meeting for preliminary interviews
