It was agreed that through dialogue and joint actions of institutions, the profession and beekeepers, specific steps for better control and stricter inspection practice, including additional checks in accordance with the laws, will be defined in the coming period.
One of the key initiatives is to stop counterfeiting meda treated as a criminal offense and not as a misdemeanor.
Minister Glamočić announced a meeting with Ministry of Justice as early as next week in order to consider the legal steps to introduce this change, reports N1.
President of the Association of Beekeeping Organizations of Serbia (SPOS), Rodoljub Živadinović, emphasized the importance of beekeeping for the entire agriculture and requested a special legal status.
Živadinović believes that beekeeping should be specially regulated, given its importance for agriculture.
Minister Glamočić said that the Ministry, in cooperation with SPOS, will consider how to implement those changes through secondary legal acts, while harmonizing with the obligations from the EU negotiations.
Subsidies and support to beekeepers
Expansion was also discussed. lists of subsidized equipment for beekeeping - to include equipment for the processing and marketing of honey - as well as additional subsidies per hive, modeled on the EU, within the crop pollination fee.
SPOS proposed the introduction of a symbolic "dinar" from the sale of pesticides as a potential source of financing for this measure. The details would be considered in August, during the preparation of the budget for the next year.
There was also talk of speeding up the implementation of the Law on Plant Protection Products, the completion of training for farmers and stricter control over the sale of pesticides.
The planting of honey trees was also considered, as well as the possibility of taking over the provisions of the Hungarian law on greening in order to improve the conditions for beekeeping.
SPOS, which gathers 5.251 beekeepers from 224 municipal associations, submitted all necessary documentation to the Ministry confirming its representativeness, N1 writes.
In addition to Glamočić and Živadinović, State Secretary Željko Radošević and representatives of the Ministry attended the meeting.
How to recognize fake honey
Dušanka Milojković-Opsenica, a professor at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Belgrade, explained to "Vreme" what is fake honey and how to distinguish it from real honey.
As he explains, "honey is a unique foodstuff, both of plant and animal origin, with a very complex composition that depends on the type of honey plants from which it comes, the place and season of collection, the type of bees, climatic conditions and beekeeping practices."
Namely, honey contains hundreds of different substances, which come from nectar, or are added by bees or are formed during maturation in the honeycomb.
As the professor states, fake honey differs in its chemical composition, which determines the appearance, color, smell, taste, nutritional and biological value of honey.
"Direct adulteration of honey usually involves the addition of some sugar syrup - corn, glucose, fructose, rice and others - in a larger or smaller quantity to the honey," she states.
"Any addition of any foreign ingredient changes the composition of honey and its characteristics, including its beneficial effects on health." Considering that counterfeiters counterfeit honey in a variety of ways for the sake of material gain, it is certain that there is fake honey that can endanger the health of the person who consumes it," explains the professor.
