Biofuel, Threat To Food Security?

The search for alternative source of fuel, in the wake of instable and mostly rising oil prices, has generated intensive discussions about biofuel and one is tempted to inquire when this argument will end.
There are some complaints that the cultivation of crops for biofuels may compete with food production, thereby increasing food insecurity while others have maintained that the practice will not make people go hungry but rather enrich their pocket.
Biofuel sources depend on natural vegetation, on crops grown specifically for energy, or on agricultural or other forms of wastes and residues. Some of these crops such as cotton seed, maize, sun flower, soy, sugar cane, oil palm and sorghum, among others, have been described as first generation biofuels whilst second-generation biofuel production processes and Jatropha is one of them.
Ghana, last week, hosted the World Jatropha Summit, a two-day programme that solicited more investors into the biofuel industry.
Themed; “Towards Higher Yields, Large-Scale Production & Exports for the International Market”, the two-day summit, held in Accra between May 28 and 29 May 2009 which brought together experts and investors from across the globe, offered unique insights and experience of planting thousands of hectares in some parts of Africa, Asia, America and Russia.
Biofuel is the hot topic in many of these countries where there are large plantations and also in Europe where the market is these days. Politicians, business leaders and activists are talking about sustainability, and whether producing biofuel displaces food production and so bumps up prices. There were riots in some poorer countries last year over exactly that issue. But given the worries over climate change, investors from the U.S. and Europe are looking at Africa as a place to grow them.
In Ghana however, the cultivation of crops for biofuel has received criticisms, especially from Civil Society Organisation and other non-governmental organisations or non-political groups advocating food security.
Farmers in some parts of the country are loosing their livelihood to the use of their lands for the cultivation of biofuel crops.
Meanwhile, it would be prudent to mention that these groups have stated categorically that they do not oppose biofuel production or investment in that sector by either local or foreign investors in the country.
What raises brows about the operations of these foreign multinational companies in the biofuel industry is acquisition of fertile and productive agricultural land which is feared would affect the food production of Ghana and incidentally make the effort of reducing poverty as required by the United Nations Millennium Development Goal I (MDG) to no avail.
MDG 1 states that developing countries should work towards eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
Food Security Policy Advocacy Network (FoodSpan), a pro-poor policies advocate in Ghana which has been campaigning for physical and economic access to adequate nutrition in term of quantity and quality has hinted that it is apprehensive of the danger associated with the spate and rate of land acquisitions for large-scale plantation, especially Jatropha, for biofuel production in the country.
To verify their concerns regarding the implication of livelihoods, food security and environment, FoodSpan, in partnership with Action aid Ghana, conducted a study from various locations where biofuel plantations are predominant such as the three Northern regions- Upper-East, Northern and Upper-West.
The findings of the study which covered the Volta, Eastern, Central and Ashanti regions have been disseminated to policy markers. Media personnel revealed that there were serious threats to livelihoods and food security, resulting from the land acquisition by the multinational companies for Jatropha cultivation.
The international companies export their products to Norway, Sweden, Singapore, the Americas and mostly to Europe.
“We are witnessing environmental destruction of biodiversity from the whole destruction of ecosystems and massive application of agro-chemicals for biofuels,” said David Eli, Chair of FoodSpan.
The major source of concern of those who have criticized biofuel production in Ghana is the absence of a comprehensive national policy on biofuel production to regulate and clearly point out the linkages among important sectors such as the environment, agriculture, industry, and energy.
In Ghana, Jatropha cannot be discussed without mentioning the late Onua Amoah who pushed biofuel production to the national limelight, which led to the establishment of a National Jatropha Project (NJP). NJP targets to cultivate one million hectares (1mha) of Jatropha plantations on available idle and degraded lands across the country over the period of 5 to 6 years.
To date, about 50,000 ha of land have been cultivated by 7 private companies.
The nonexistence of a clearly defined policy direction, they think, could seriously interfere with development processes and priorities “with far damaging consequences for our match to liberate ourselves from the shackles of underdevelopment, poverty, and deprivation that has often resulted from economic dominance of foreign interest,” said FoodSpan.
Kinsley Ofei Nkansah, General Secretary of the Ghana Agricultural workers union of the Ghana Trade Union Congress, is worried that Ghana and many other African countries have become targets and are currently experiencing enormous rush for land for biofuel production. “This trend is not healthy for the fight against food security, environmental degradation and poverty in the country.”
Ohene Akoto, country Director of Jatropha Africa which has about 120,000 hectors plantation at Kadelso near Kintampo in Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana, in an interview shortly after the summit said, “The plant has been in existence for sometime but people do not know the economic value”.
Jatropha Africa which is three years old uses its improved seeds instead of the traditional seeds as the former has 40 per cent oil content and yields 2,5 tonnes of dry seeds per hectar whiles the later yields 0.8 tonnes.
Mr Akoto said Jatropha Africa wish it could operate in areas that has a well distributed rainfall throughout the year. however such places are meant for Ghana’s cash crop. In some parts of the central region and the Northern region, economic trees such as shea-nut and Dawadawa have been destroyed for biofuel plantation.
Another investor, Jack Holden of Gold Star Biofuel, said many countries have rejected his seeds, adding, “In Chile, we had our seeds destroyed but we have planted here and it is doing well; in three months, you have results.”
Hans Adu-Dapaah, Director of Crop Research Institute at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), when asked if there were any known negative effect on the environment, explained that though his outfit has done some form of study, “we have not done extensive research” as a result of lack of funding.
It has been stated in some circles that Jatropha poses a threat to the soil as the soil cannot be used for the cultivation of other crops in later years, but Frank Ata Owusu of KITE, a non-profit-making development organisation leading in the energy, technology and environment sector said the perception is as a result of a lack of agronomic facts.
Diligent Energy, a biofuel company that uses out growers in Tanzania, says it is putting up all the best practices in the industry as buyers in Europe will not buy from them if they do otherwise.
The company supplies 20,000 tonnes of jatropha to Boeing for the production of jet fuel, in addition to the producing vegetable oil, biogas, charcoal and other by products from Jatropha.
According to Ruud van Eck, Chief Executive Officer of Diligent Energy, the company pays 10 cent in dollar terms per kilo of dry seed to the out growers in Tanzania but Ohene Akoto, of Jatropha Africa says his company pays between 1.5 and 3 pesewas per kilo “ but we will gradually increase it and have a floor price.”
While Diligent Energy pays that much “to make the business attractive to the local farmers” who are constantly being encouraged to practice intercropping, Ulrich B Riemann, an investor with 160 hectors plantation near Accra says, “I can’t pay that much, how will I pay my other workers.”
To Riemann, the “Jatropha industry is ailing. Investors are being misled. The time for digging for gold in Jatropha is definitely over.”
Explaining that Jatropha enriches the soil and therefore helps other crops such as maize, beans, among other to crops, he hinted that “Jatropha is not viable when it is cultivated as a monocrop but when intercropping is practiced one stands to gain.”
For a fuller optimization of the benefits of biofuel production in Ghana, the government is being called on to “urgently set up an institution of a policy framework to regulate biofuel production in Ghana,” said Anna Antwi, Cordinator of FoodSpan.
The Ministry of food and agriculture said for a better legal and environmental regulation, there will be the need to amend National Petroleum Authority (NPA) Act 691 to accommodate.
Energy Commission in August 2005 set up a Bio fuel Committee to prepare a National Bio-fuel Policy to guide the development of the bio-fuel industry.
“I must say with all sadness that for about three and half years, this document has not been turned into a workable document,” said the deputy minister of Food and Agriculture.
some are of the view that since we have large tracks of land lying fallow, " why not use it for cultivation of biofuel crops?" said one of such advocates.
However, Frank Ata Owusu of KITE, who shares the same view with Ulrich, says Africa needs both food and energy and not one over the other, as farmers can combine food production with energy production with innovative technology coming into play or if energy crops are targeted to more marginal lands.