Trump’s tariffs put India’s honey trade in a sticky spot

From migratory beekeepers, Saini learnt the primordial rules of a bee colony. That there can be only one queen in a box. That she may be killed by worker bees or will have to leave the colony when she gets old and her egg-laying capacity declines. A new queen is raised by workers whose lifespan is just a few weeks. The endless cycle, where the success and productivity of a colony supersedes the wellbeing of its individual residents, fascinated Saini.

In 2015, then an intrepid 22-year-old, Saini decided to take the sting. He began with a modest 24 boxes, each housing thousands of worker bees, a fat queen, her abdomen swollen with eggs, and male drones whose only utility is to mate and die immediately afterwards.

A decade on, Saini owns 300 boxes and travels long distances, from mustard fields in Haryana and apple orchards in Himachal Pradesh to Alwar in Rajasthan when pearl millet and sorghum are in bloom. Last year, Saini’s beehives produced five tonnes—5,000 kg—of honey—valued at close to ₹6 lakh.

Apart from selling honey, Saini also provides rent-a-bee services to farmers. In the apple orchards of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, bee boxes are in high demand during the flowering season as pollination by bees greatly improves the fruit yield. Orchardists pay beekeepers up to ₹1,200 per box. A couple of weeks in an orchard can mean earnings of over ₹2.5 lakh. But it’s risky too: sudden snowfall or an abrupt drop in temperature can decimate colonies.

Saini is now an experienced beekeeper who trains fellow farmers looking to diversify their incomes. When Mint met him in Alwar earlier this month, he was spearheading a group of more than 20 novice beekeepers managing over 2,000 boxes.

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Sweet revolution

In a way, Saini’s graduation from an amateur enthusiast to an avid professional mirrors the strides of India’s honey industry. Between 2016-17 and 2024-25, production of natural honey in India rose from 94,500 tonnes to 152,000 tonnes, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 7%, much higher than the average growth of 2-3% for conventional crops such as cereals and pulses.

The number of beekeepers is estimated to have more than doubled in the past decade to over 70,000, said Narayanan Renganathan, vice president and head of procurement at Dabur India, the largest consumer brand of honey in India. The surge in honey production came from higher acreage of mustard (an oilseed whose flowers contribute over half of the honey produced in India), fruits such as litchi and pomegranate, spices, including ajwain (carom seeds) and eucalyptus plantations—the source of pollen and nectar for domesticated bees.

“India’s floral (and crop) diversity, and established migratory routes allowed beekeepers to produce different types of honey year-round, which improved overall yields. This production growth came from government support, better beekeeping practices, and stronger market connections,” said Sanjeev Asthana, chief executive officer (CEO) of Patanjali Foods.

The sector got a shot in the arm in 2021 when the government launched a ₹500 crore National Beekeeping and Honey Mission to create rural jobs by promoting scientific beekeeping. Commercial beekeeping has achieved a rare feat: it’s a farming practice where the bulk of the output is reserved for exports. In 2024-25, India exported an impressive 100,773 tonnes of natural honey, about 66% of its annual production. The exports were valued at ₹1,750 crore, a three-fold jump in five years.

Dabur’s Renganathan estimates domestic demand to be around 50,000 tonnes. Taking exports and the domestic market together, beekeeping is now a ₹3,500 crore industry.

Migration is critical to commercial beekeeping because only when bees are exposed to more flora spread across seasons can they produce more honey. The surge in migratory beekeeping has led to an explosion in floral expressions. Consumers can now choose from a wide variety, including litchi, eucalyptus, saffron, jamun, ajwain and wild-forest honey.

Yet, Saini and his fellow beekeepers are unhappy. The bulk price of honey has slid from the highs seen a few years back, when the covid pandemic led to a spike in demand.

“We can barely make ends meet. The price of honey has not kept pace with the rising cost of labour and the cost of transporting boxes over long distances,” Saini said.

For instance, this July, he spent close to ₹30,000 shifting his boxes from jamun (black plum) orchards in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, to Alwar in Rajasthan, a distance of over 400 km.

The migration is more for the upkeep of the bees, which need pollen collected from millet and fodder crops to survive—the monsoons are lean months with little or no honey production.

In addition to low prices for beekeepers, the honey industry is also struggling due to a crash in international prices. Since two-third of domestic production is exported, with the US being the leading buyer, the threat of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump looms large.

Price pains

The covid pandemic had led to a surge in demand for honey due to its supposed anti-bacterial properties and potency to treat coughs and colds. This led to a spike in farm prices to ₹150-170 per kg in 2021. Since then, the price has fallen to ₹90-110 per kg.

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The farmgate price of honey is determined by a variety of factors, including international prices and demand, explained Dabur’s Renganathan. The export price of honey has fallen sharply, from $3,000 per tonne two years back, to $1,500 per tonne now, he added. This has impacted the price realization for domestic growers.

The tariffs imposed by Trump are an added blow. “A 50% tariff on Indian honey (which includes a 25% penalty for the purchase of Russian oil by India) will be a huge blow for the entire industry, including processors and beekeepers,” said Arshdeep Singh, managing director at Allied Natural Product, which claims to be the largest exporter of honey from India.

In 2024-25, the US imported 79,720 tonnes of Indian honey. That’s over half of the estimated production during the year and nearly 80% of exports from India. A high tariff on India could mean ceding ground to countries such as Argentina, Vietnam, Ukraine and Mexico, which also export honey to the US and have lower tariff rates.

In 2024-25, the US imported 79,720 tonnes of Indian honey. That’s over half of the estimated production during the year and nearly 80% of exports from India.

In addition to uncertainties in the export market, domestic demand growth has stayed flat after the post-covid surge in consumption. As per Dabur, over the past decade, domestic consumption has been growing at a CAGR of 2-3%. This means growth in the sector was largely fuelled by growing export demand.

However, Sanjeev Asthana of Patanjali Foods says that domestic demand is robust. “The industry’s annual domestic consumption is estimated at about 60,000 to 65,000 metric tonnes (a higher estimate compared to Dabur’s) and demand is steadily increasing as people learn more about honey’s health benefits,” he said.

Asthana added that Patanjali is among the largest honey brands in India, with annual domestic sales of 8,000 to 10,000 tonnes in recent years. “In the past five years, we have seen double-digit growth… we expect the category to keep growing steadily.”

Adulteration impact

A common perception among beekeepers is that adulteration with various sugar syrups reduces the demand for natural honey and its farm gate price.

While adulteration does take place, the truth is more complex.

Over 60% of India’s honey production comes from mustard fields. During colder months, mustard honey crystallizes and turns pale white. Consumers suspect the honey to be adulterated with sugar, which is one reason why domestic brands avoid using mustard honey. This honey is usually exported, the bulk of it going to ingredient manufacturers in the US, who use them in breakfast cereals, bakery products and cosmetics.

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The price of mustard honey acts as a baseline rate for domestic beekeepers.

Processors and brands tend to brush away concerns around adulteration of honey with sugar syrups, but studies have shown otherwise.

In 2020, an investigation by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) found that only three out of the 13 major brands of honey sold in India passed all tests for adulteration with starch-based sugar syrups. CSE concluded that manufacturers were using modified syrups to evade detection in lab tests.

A year after the CSE report was published, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) carried out a test on 550 honey samples. Over half of the samples failed the test, said K. Lakshmi Rao, former assistant director at the Central Bee Research and Training Institute (CBRTI), Pune. The report was not made public.

Rao, currently a member of the scientific advisory committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards, added that adulteration of honey with rice syrup (also known as all-pass syrup because it can avoid detection in regular tests) is a rampant practice even today. This is because rice starch can easily avoid detection while corn syrup can be detected in lab tests mandated by the FSSAI.

One way to detect the presence of rice syrup in honey is through a nuclear magnetic resonance or NMR test. Currently, exporters, under a government mandate, and some smaller brands send their samples to Germany for the NMR test.

Adulteration of honey with rice syrup is a rampant practice. This is because rice starch can easily avoid detection while corn syrup can be detected in lab tests mandated by the FSSAI.

“It’s been five years since our study highlighted the practice of adulterating honey and the complex nature of detecting it,” said Amit Khurana, director of the sustainable food systems programme at CSE. “The regulator (FSSAI) should have restored consumer trust by periodically testing and sharing results in public,” he added.

FSSAI did not respond to queries sent by Mint.

Patanjali Foods’ Asthana said that “adulteration is a serious concern as it impacts consumer trust and suppresses farm gate prices for genuine beekeepers.”

He added that Patanjali supports the adoption of NMR testing for exports, and the test can be gradually introduced in the domestic market, given its ability to detect sophisticated adulteration.

However, Dabur’s Renganathan argues that FSSAI standards are stringent and already test for 26 quality parameters. “NMR is not the gold standard and samples are tested against a database to verify the origin of honey. India is now in the process of creating a database of hundreds of types of honey produced in the country.”

Exotic takeover

India introduced the exotic bee species Apis mellifera in the late 1970s, and it is now the mainstay of commercial honey production. A mellifera box can produce between 30-50 kg of honey in a year, three to four times the output of native bees such as Apis cerana and Apis dorsata.

Mellifera was promoted by successive government programmes but it had an ecological cost. Out of focus, the number of native bees depleted.

“Many areas that we work in—south Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh—have seen a drastic decline in the population of local bees such as Apis cerana, Apis dorsata and stingless bees,” said Sujana Krishnamoorthy, executive director of Under The Mango Tree Society, which promotes beekeeping to raise farm productivity and markets organic honey produced by tribal beekeepers.

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Krishnamoorthy cited a variety of reasons for the decline: deforestation leading to lack of nesting sites, use of pesticides (particularly, neonicotinoids, a class of chemicals resembling nicotine, which impact the nervous system of bees and their foraging ability) and unsustainable honey hunting practices. All this has resulted in a pollinator crisis, particularly for small and subsistence farmers.

Back in Alwar, Bablu Saini and his fellow beekeepers are busy moving bees. The group is setting up new colonies in empty boxes. It’s gruelling work on a hot and humid August afternoon. No one is wearing a protective suit; some have covered their faces with a removable, netted hood. They are not bothered by bee-stings now and then. But all are antsy about the steady dip in honey prices. That sting hurts more.

Read Sayantan Bera’s first-person account of how he went about reporting this story, in Mint’s weekly newsletter, The Beat Report, this Saturday. Subscribe on mintnl.substack.com.