Ethiopia: Africa Takes Closer, But Still Wary Look at Biofuels

Africa’s search for affordable ways to feed its people, rejuvenate land resources and break the poverty cycle is leading it back to bioenergies. A conference underway in Addis Ababa is brimming with ideas for resolving the “food versus fuel” controversy that doomed earlier biofuel projects.

Thinkers and visionaries from all over the world are congregating in the Ethiopian capital for the second Africa bioenergies conference.
In an opening address, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told experts and government officials from 45 countries that past bioenergy projects had done his country more harm than good because prime forests and food crop lands had been diverted to fuel production.

“As the productivity of agriculture stagnated, and pressure of growing population intensified, our forests, the sources of much of our bio energy, have been subjected to massive deforestation and degradation. Traditional inefficient use of bio energy has affected agricultural growth negatively,” he said.

Mr. Meles said new ideas in bioenergy are essential if countries like Ethiopia are to feed their growing populations and break their dependence on environmentally-damaging fossil fuels.

“The transformation of the interaction between agriculture and bio energy in Africa from a negative to a positive one, is thus not only necessary and possible, but also a key means of adjusting african economies to climate change. This is our path to transforming the challenge of global warming into an opportunity for economic growth and transformation,” he said.

Many delegates attending this conference are hopeful an African Green Revolution might take off following the twin setbacks of the global economic downturn and the ‘food versus fuel’ debate. They say funds for bioenergy projects will be available later this year as the flow of capital and credit returns to markets.

Ethiopian Review