Meet the Santali and Mundari communities whose centuries-old beekeeping knowledge forms the backbone of DVISSA's sourcing.
Deep in the Saranda forest of Jharkhand — one of the largest sal forests in Asia — the Santali and Mundari communities have been practicing honey gathering for centuries. Their knowledge is oral, passed from grandparent to grandchild, encoded in songs and stories about the seasons, the flowers, and the bees. This is not hobby beekeeping. It is a livelihood, a culture, and a sophisticated ecological practice.
DVISSA first made contact with Saranda's beekeeping communities in late 2019 through an NGO working on forest livelihood programmes. What the team found was a community whose product was extraordinary — but whose market access was almost nonexistent. Middlemen would arrive twice a year, offer prices 30–40% below market rate, and leave with truckloads of honey that would be diluted, relabelled, and sold in cities at ten times the price.
The partnership DVISSA proposed was different. Direct procurement at fair market prices, guaranteed offtake regardless of season, advance payment for equipment, and complete transparency about how the honey was being sold and at what price. The community leaders were sceptical at first — they had heard similar promises from buyers who disappeared after the first season. DVISSA's team spent months visiting, participating in community meetings, and proving through action rather than words.
By mid-2020, DVISSA had formalised agreements with 34 beekeeping families across three villages in Saranda. Each family was provided with standardised collection equipment, hygiene training, and a direct WhatsApp line to DVISSA's procurement team. Prices were linked to quarterly market rates, not arbitrarily set. For the first time, these families had predictable, fair income from their ancestral craft.
The relationship goes beyond transactional. DVISSA's team visits three times a year, not just to collect honey but to listen — to understand what the community needs, what challenges they're facing, and what knowledge they hold that can improve the product. Several innovations in DVISSA's storage and cold chain process came directly from suggestions made by Santali women who had spent decades observing how honey behaves across seasons.
"Before DVISSA, we sold honey to survive. Now we sell honey to thrive. There is a difference."