Medina agreement an expansion of Aramco’s support to Kingdom’s beekeepers

HRH Prince Faisal bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Governor of the Medina Region, last week witnessed the signing of an agreement between Aramco and the Beekeepers Cooperative Society to launch the “Saudi Aramco Initiative to Support Low Income Beekeepers for Beekeeping and Development of its Products in the Medina Region.” 

Khalid K. Al Mulhim, Aramco executive director of Corporate Affairs, was also in attendance.

Al Mulhim highlighted the company’s decades-long support in the development of such ventures and the shared responsibility of being a good corporate citizen, something that continues to be important today through such activities as the agreement with the Medina beekeepers.

He added that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) expresses the company’s efforts to cultivate the benefits derived from the natural resources in the various regions of the Kingdom to make a positive and tangible impact on the lives of individuals and their respective communities.

The citizenship programs implemented by Aramco work to support economic and societal projects Kingdomwide, which in turn enable people to move forward and translate ideas into reality.
— Khalid K. Al Mulhim

Promoting small business ventures

The agreement looks to help 300 low income individuals to improve beekeeping and develop their products in Madinah. Through the initiative, Aramco will provide advanced equipment and quality testing methods, in addition to providing training to beekeepers, thereby increasing the efficiency and productivity of local honey products.

The initiative is another in a long line of company efforts designed to create and develop an added value for traditional crafts and natural resources, as well as to attract Saudis to the small and emerging business sector.

Specifically, the initiative focuses on the care of queen bees and the preservation of local breeds, through the establishment of an apiary, which will become an asset for the Cooperative Society of Beekeepers, which produces about 5,000 queen bees.

The initiative is in line with company’s efforts launched in 2016 in al-Baha with the Beekeepers Cooperative Society there, which were later expanded to include the regions of Asia and Taif. In these locations, thousands of honey plants have been cultivated to support pollination and beekeeping efforts, and more than 1,500 beekeepers have been trained.

In addition to supporting the honey industry, the production of its derivatives such as wax, gum, royal jelly, and pollen has been expanded.

Scientific research

Aramco’s initiatives in the field of honey have also recently included the signing of an MoU in the field of scientific research with King Khalid University in Asir, which looks to establish a production plant for excellent local breeds, in turn improving the sector’s financial and environmental returns through biodiversity, pollination of flowers, hive products, and others. The agreement looks to facilitate an exchange of experiences and the unification of efforts designed to advance the honey bee industry.