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UMT and Pharmaniaga collaborate to promote stingless bee honey

UMT and Pharmaniaga collaborate to promote stingless bee honey

Sunday, 11/04/2021

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PETALING JAYA – Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) has established a collaboration with Pharmaniaga Berhad (Pharmaniaga) to commercialise the stingless bee honey the university produces through its research project.

Signing the agreement for UMT was Vice Chancellor Professor Dato’ Dr Nor Aieni Mokhtar, while for Pharmaniaga its managing director Datuk Zulkarnain Md Eusope.

Through the collaboration, the local farmers will be helped to expand their stingless bee honey businesses. In addition, the collaboration will enable commercialisation of stingless bee honey on a larger scale, which will improve the socioeconomic status of stingless bee honey farmers.

Professor Nor Aieni said that UMT has many experts in the field of stingless bee farming as a result of R&D activities of more than 10 years.

“UMT researchers have been involved in stingless bee farming activities since 2014. Stingless bee colony plots were established at UMT Bukit Kor campus, currently with 30 stingless bee colonies.

“Since then, various collections of Indo-Malaya stingless bees have been gathered to become the Indo-Maya stingless bee repository at UMT Bukit Kor campus. UMT has also conducted Kelulutpreneur UMT programme to train its students to become successful stingless bee entrepreneurs.”

According to Professor Nor Aieni, 81 hectares of land at Bukit Kor belonging to UMT will be developed for the project.

“For starter, UMT will supply a minimum of 300 kg of stingless bee honey every month, and the quantity will increase when the project is expanded to include more stingless bee farmers throughout the country.”

“We have the UMT Bee and Stingless Bee Researcher Group that has been established since 2017, led by Professor Dr Shamsul Bahri Abd Razak and joined by 20 UMT researchers with various expertise, such as stingless bee behaviour, quality of honey, food microbiology, population genetics, protein chemistry, product development, and others.

“UMT is the only public university that formed a focus group to find solutions to issues on honey and stingless bees for the development of Malaysian stingless bee industry.

“Through the various expertise, UMT is able to conduct several stingless bee honey studies that are more focused and help create better quality products,” she said.

Also present at the signing ceremony were Senior Defence Minister Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Noraini Ahmad.

 

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Corporate Communication Office

Universiti Malaysia Terengganu