Under the Women Farmer Empowerment Project (MKSP) implemented by Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society (JSLPS), Forest Honey was launched by the women of Sakhi Mandal from different districts of the State.

Chief Operating Officer, JSLPS, Bishnu Charan Parida and State Program Manager, Arif Akhtar were present on the occasion. Traditionally produced honey is collected naturally in the remote dense forests of Jharkhand. Forest honey full of medicinal properties is very beneficial for health.

Traditionally forest honey has been produced in remote rural areas of Jharkhand, but it was on the verge of extinction due to lack of proper technology and knowledge of market system. Today, under the MKSP project, JSLPS has taken initiative to provide new livelihood opportunities to 9000 families belonging to Sakhi Mandal of 183 villages in 10 blocks of four districts of the State that is Ranchi, Latehar, Khunti and Simdega, by training them in scientific method of honey production. Apart from this, pure honey produced by women will be collected and made available in the market under the Palash brand by collecting honey through community institutions.

Women Leading Farmer Empowerment (MAKS) website, www.maksbusiness.com was launched by the women of Sakhi Mandal under the Innovative Honey Livelihood project. It is a consortium of various FPCs under the MKSP-Value Chain Programme. Its objective is to provide supervision, guidance and assistance to the FPC in its successful operation which will be conducted by the representatives of the BOD of the FPC.

Parida expressed happiness over empowering the women of Sakhi Mandal by providing new livelihood opportunities through forest honey production. Apart from this, he encouraged the women by giving his important suggestions on the packaging, branding and marketing of Forest Honey. Emphasizing the quality of the product, he told that the products produced by him are bought and liked by the people in the State as well as at the National level in the Saras Mela, so send them for marketing after paying attention to it at your level. Giving suggestions on the 'Women Leading Farmer Empowerment' (MAKS) website, he made some changes in it to make it easy to use for rural women.