Stingless bees farming in Malaysia: a policy analysis matrix (PAM)

Abstract

After reaching high export production in 2010, the quantity of honey export gradually declined and consumed more imported honey until the year 2017 in Malaysia. This circumstance happened due to low yield in rearing common bees from the local beekeepers. Stingless bees (Trigona) emerged as one of the alternative species that is expected to generate the existing domestic supply of honey in Malaysia. Nevertheless, stingless bee farming is an infant industry and requires more investigation from the economic finding, before suggesting massive commercialization. Hence, the study aims to measure the level of competitiveness, comparative advantage, and government protection to stingless bees farming in Malaysia using Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM). As a result, the industry has achieved a high competitiveness level in the domestic and international markets. Nevertheless, the government still does not fully intervene, the effect on the market liberalization is not visible to the whole stingless bees farming in Malaysia. Therefore, assistance from the government through a policy intervention is urgently necessitated.

Keywords:

• stingless bees farming
• Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM)
• competitiveness
• comparative advantage
• government protection

Acknowledgements

The authors thankfully acknowledge the financial support received from the TRGS research grant no. TRGS/1/2016/UPM/01/5/1 provided by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.