Where Tanzania’s Honey Actually Goes: Germany Buys Two-Thirds of It

Tanzania exported 444 tonnes of natural honey in 2024, worth $1.12 million. Four buyers account for almost all of it, and one country — Germany — buys more than everyone else combined.

Germany dominates; Ireland, the Netherlands and the US split most of the rest

UN Comtrade’s bilateral trade data for 2024 (HS 040900, natural honey) shows Germany buying 248 tonnes worth $707,320 — 63% of Tanzania’s total honey export value. Ireland ($165,075), the Netherlands ($109,439) and the United States ($104,600) make up most of what’s left. Together these four markets account for roughly 97% of the export value Tanzania reports. The remaining buyers — Rwanda, Albania, Kenya, the UAE, DR Congo and Oman — each take a few thousand dollars’ worth.

Tanzania also imports a small amount of honey

Less noted: Tanzania imported 33 tonnes of honey in 2024, worth roughly $19,800 — about 7% of its export volume. This isn’t unusual for a country with an informal, dispersed beekeeping sector; it likely reflects regional cross-border trade rather than a structural need to import honey.

A real legal and institutional framework, underused in the public data

Tanzania’s beekeeping sector has had formal legislation since 2002 — the Beekeeping Act, Cap 224 — which established a national beekeeping director, an advisory committee, a registration system for beekeepers, and a dedicated development fund. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism’s 2021-2031 implementation strategy sets a goal of raising honey’s export share of total production from roughly 5% to 10% by 2031 — alongside Tanzania Forest Services, which manages the country’s gazetted bee reserves, and the Tanzania Forestry Research Institute (TAFORI), which runs the national beekeeping research programme. All three are genuine, active institutions with a traceable legal and policy basis, not informal claims.

A production figure worth reading carefully

FAOSTAT’s 64-year production series for Tanzanian honey (1961-2024, reaching 31,902 tonnes in 2024) is the most complete historical record available — but it’s worth knowing that nearly every year since 2009 is flagged by FAOSTAT itself as an estimate or imputed figure, not an officially verified government statistic. That doesn’t make the series unusable; FAOSTAT’s estimation methodology is the standard most countries’ agricultural statistics rely on. It does mean the apparent precision of a number like “31,902.46 tonnes” shouldn’t be read as more exact than it is.

Taken together: Tanzania’s honey production is large relative to what gets exported (export volume is roughly 1.4% of FAOSTAT-estimated production), buyers are heavily concentrated in Germany, and the institutional apparatus to grow the export share already exists on paper. The gap between the sector’s stated 10%-by-2031 export target and today’s roughly 1-5% is the clearest open question the public data leaves unanswered.