Tanzania: Expert Faults Commercial Jatropha Investments
(AllAfrica.com) Jatropha should not replace any crops in arable farms and instead should be cultivated by smallholder farmers as hedges for farms, an expert has warned.
Pamoja Inc Co-Director Jonathan Otto said in Dar es Salaam recently that jatropha as a source of energy for communities is receiving bad media publicity because of large scale commercial investors who are driving farmers off arable land to cultivate the biofuel plant.
Pamoja Inc which is an initiative by the United States Department of Agriculture to help smallholder farmers said a recent ActionAid Kenya report that denounced large scale commercial investments in jatropha is very true because such initiatives are a bad idea for Africa.
…Prof Maghembe said his ministry will ensure that no prime land or food crop is used for biofuel production because both local and international markets for food are offering better incentives.
“Food prices are skyrocketing and will continue doing so for the foreseeable future, our goal is to boost production and supply such markets,” he pointed out.
…Jatropha is best grown in hedges around fields, as noted earlier, in a way that protests field crops rather than replacing them,” he argued.
…”In a country where over 90 per cent of all fuel consumed is for domestic energy, the priority need is not for biodiesel but for safe, renewable cooking fuel.
Yet I calculate that if three million small farmers grew Jatropha as noted above, Tanzania would be self-sufficient in biodiesel as well — with no large plantations required. It is not a choice of food versus fuel.
We need both food and fuel to survive and thrive,” he argued. READ MORE
