Pooling intergenerational beekeeping knowledge

Since 2019, the AI-Driven Climate-Smart Beekeeping for Women project (AID-CSB) has worked with beekeepers in Uzbekistan and Ethiopia to localize and pilot a hive management app for more successful beekeeping and ecosystem strengthening. 

Project activities to build digital literacy skills not only enable young women and rural beekeepers to use the app but helps them to equitably access resources and knowledge and visualize new and expanding opportunities in agriculture. The activities also position youth, with their familiarity with such technology, to help family members and older generations of farmers to expand the use and benefits derived from new digital technologies in agriculture.

To support app uptake and digital literacy skills, the project engaged women beekeepers in the app design process and provided smartphones and trainings to participating beekeepers. The project also created a Telegram group in which participating beekeepers exchange questions and information.

We spoke with two of the beekeepers participating in the project from Tashkent, Uzbekistan: Olga and her father, Sergey. As part of the next beekeeping generation, Olga and other young women utilize their digital skills to actively engage in agricultural activities and plan new entrepreneurial ventures while their elders hand down the tradition of beekeeping.