Any variation of honey prices in the international market has a direct effect on the beekeeping sector since honey prices directly power the activity in countries with a significant participation in the international market, and indirectly in countries with a lower participation. As clearly described in the APIMONDIA Statement on Honey Fraud (Apimondia, 2020), the preservation of honey quality and purity becomes absolutely essential for the sustainability of the honey chain whose foundation begins with beekeepers.

The American continent shows quite different realities in terms of participation in the international honey market. On the one hand, there is a group of important honey exporting countries, such as Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Uruguay, etc. On the other hand, we have a group of importing countries, some with small volumes in order to balance their domestic consumption and others such as the world’s largest importer of honey, the United States of America, which demands about 30% of the product that is marketed worldwide. Canada, a major global exporter of honey is also an importer of significant quantities with a developed domestic market.

​In the world´s biggest honey market, the U.S., the problem of honey fraud has involved circumvention through third countries in which a false country of origin was designed to avoid the high antidumping duties which prevail in the U.S. As in the case of many commodities which are tinged with fraud, the prices of such products are always well below what a normal market would demand. The pernicious consequences of adulteration of honey derive from the fact that modern modes of adulteration create a situation in which there are no limits to the quantities nor floors to the prices of adulterated honey.

The problem of adulteration involves both the export of adulterated honey and the export of the methods for adulterating honey. This underlies the collapse of honey prices and threatens beekeepers with an existential crisis.