Govt Urged to Empower Small Farmers in Biofuel Production

Business News/Analysis, Farming/Growing, Feedstocks, Field/Orchard/Plantation Crops/Residues, Infrastructure, Policy, Sustainability, Tanzania, Zimbabwe

December 27, 2012

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by Gerald Kitabu (IPP Media) The government of Tanzania has been urged to localise biofuel commercial production by empowering small farmers in terms of training, loans and marketing.
The call was made by Tanzanian researchers and scientists during a recent visit to Zimbabwe where they saw for themselves how non- governmental organisations in collaboration with the government of Zimbabwe have managed to localise jatropha production.
Unlike Tanzania, where jatropha crop is mainly cultivated by foreign investors, Zimbabweans at Mutoko and Mudzi districts in Zimbabwe, some 280 kms from the capital, Harare, have been enabled to sustainably produce, process, utilise and market the crop and related by-products.
The Guardian witnessed some of the jatropha products such as soap and oil, among many others, with the farmers saying the initiative has rescued them from abject poverty as they now sell and earn regular income from the crop. READ MORE

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