Ethiopia develops biofuels

Ethiopia Biofuels

Ethiopa, a country ravaged by conflict and a severely unstable economy, spends over US$1 billion every year on oil imports. Now the country is hoping to emulate Brazil in developing its biofuels industry to cut is reliance on foreign oil.

Ephrem Hassen, coordinator of biofuels development in the Ministry of Mines and Energy, told Reuters in an interview that Ethiopia was developing biofuel crops on more than half a million hectares of arid land.

In recent years Ethiopia has been developing jatropha and palm oil plants on over 500,000 hectares of land, with a reported 1.6 million hectares of additional fertile land to be auctioned off to foreign investors to develop farms for agricultural production. The plans come as the latest sign that the Ethiopian government, which has a history of dealing with famine and drought, are taking steps to settle food versus fuel concerns particularly prevalent in the country.

Programme would not use land fit for food

Ephrem himself said: "Castor oil plants, jatropha and palm oil plants are being developed over 500,000 hectares of arid and barren lands in different parts of the country so as to reduce land-locked Ethiopia's dependency on imported oil."

The major biofuels are ethanol, a petroleum substitute, which is mainly produced from grains and sugar crops, and biodiesel for which the primary stock is vegetable oils.

The government insist the project would not use land fit for food production, this is highly important considering Ethiopia suffers from food shortages and the government appealed last month for 159,410 tonnes of food to feed some 6.2 million Ethiopians hit by drought.

UN advice

Ephrem said investors were developing biofuels on tens of thousand of hectares of land in the western regions of Gambella and Benishangule and in the Tigray and Amhara regions.

But the UN have recently urged caution from those countries hoping to increase the development of biofuels. The UN report said governments had to place biofuels into an "overall energy, climate, land-use, water, and agricultural strategy" if they are to succeed.

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