Honey (world market)

2020: Major honey producers

At the end of 2020, about 1.85 million tons of honey were produced around the world, which is 4.7% less than in 2016. Such data in August 2021 were published by BusinesStat analysts.

China remains the largest producer of honey, which in 2020 produced 500 thousand tons of these products, which corresponds to a share of 27%. In second place is Turkey, which accounted for 5.6% of the market and production of 104.1 thousand tons.

Argentina and Ukraine close the top three, the share of each of the countries in the total production of honey in the world amounted to 4.2% (78 thousand tons). The study notes that in 2016-2019. Ukraine was in fourth place in the global ranking of honey producers and only in 2020 caught up with Argentina in production and shared the third line of the rating with it.

The main reason for the decrease in honey production in the world is the decrease in the population of honey bees. The number of bee families has been steadily declining for more than half a century, while in the past decade the process of reducing the number of bees in the world has accelerated. Scientists call global warming and the widespread use of pesticides in agriculture the main causes of insect extinction. By the end of 2020, many countries have developed programs aimed at helping the beekeeping industry, but these measures will not be able to seriously affect the current situation in the coming years.

According to analysts at Euromonitor International, in 2020 the Russian honey market may grow from 34.5 thousand tons to 34.8 thousand tons in kind and by about 5.5%, to 17.66 billion rubles in cash. Analysts note that modern trade accounts for up to 15% of sales, the rest of the products are purchased at fairs or directly from farmers. The beekeeping industry in the Russian Federation is almost completely represented by apiaries in private subsidiary farms, and system players are only in the processing segment.^[1]

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