Assam’s ‘bee corridors’: how the state’s farmers are betting on pollinators

Along the paddy fields of Nagaon district, small wooden boxes are changing the arithmetic of farming: managed beehives have lifted mustard yields by a fifth through better pollination, and the honey is a second harvest.

The state’s ‘bee corridor’ programme has placed 20,000 hives with 3,000 families, many of them women farmers.

Agronomists say the model is cheap, climate-resilient and exportable to the rest of the region.