Are biofuels worth the investments in the east Africa?

  As students of Global Change Course 2010 Tanzania and on behalf of our trainers we are so much touched by the issue of biofuels not only in Tanzania but in Africa as a whole, we all believe it’s a challenge to food security and hunger related issues.

As we are embarking on our second week as we are pushing on our course in order to go for our goal of saving the 800 million people still living in hunger despite the world politician’s radical statements to end poverty and hunger. As part of our campaigns, biofuels has become a topical issue in relation to food security and let’s take a case study of biofuels in northern part of Tanzania. the investment  of jatrophain the  northern Tanzania is a risky venture, according to my survey  it came on my notice that the cost-benefit analysis reveals that farmers will only start earning money after yields  of around 3,00o kilograms per hectare of jatropha seed, it has also revealed that fertile land in northern Tanzania has been sacrificed to grow the oil-rich jatropha and this still a rather risky and long term investment with insecure prospects and high opportunity costs, this is happening in many African countries as a huge chunks of fertile land are taken for the several biofuels sources being considered as the world searches for alternatives to fossil fuels. When energy prices soared in 2007, manycompanies, private investors, NGOs, farmers and national as well as local governments from developed and developing countries embarked on jatropha ventures, this is a thorn in the fresh and has negative implications especially in this when the world is facing three interconnected problems of poverty, hunger and climate. here in Tanzania, the viability of jatropha seed production is yet to be thoroughly assessed though there have been some investigations into its feasibility in east Africa but these has been largely based on assumptions of data from else where which are not neither applicable nor dependable in reality. It is quiet disappointing to note that despite of data, more than 10,000 small holder farmers in Tanzania are establishing jatropha plantations. the situation worsened by the fact that many farmers tend to intercrop jatropha with food crops on arable land thus reducing food production for little or no gain. this reminds me hedges in his book stuffed and starved where he talks about lack of farmers choice and he puts it very clear,” the majority of world’s farmers are suffering, some are selling off their land to become laborers on their family plots, some migrate to the cities or overseas, a few, too many resort to suicide” the same story will happen I predict. The current situation shows that jatropha cultivation is only profitable under certain conditions and unlike

Kelly to substantially increase employment the income in rural areas, this can be evinced in the management and harvesting of jatropha requires considerable labor in put of which local poor farmers can not afford. in a nutshell, it is very important to note that the poor farmers are going to be underpaid, loosing their suitable land, shifting from food production to jatropha,becoming squatters on their own land, because there is no policy framework, and the legal frame work is not clear as the farmers can not take part in the sell and compensation of their suitable land directly but only literature on papers full of empty promises, which  will never happen until Jesus comes back, of which am not so sure.

Kiranda: student global change 2010 Tanzania.