Addressing the food versus fuel debate in Ghana

Concerns over energy supply security and oil-price volatility are generating greater interest in alternative energy sources in Ghana. Civil society groups want a comprehensive biofuel policy. Godwin NNANNA in Accra writes that so far the policy has been slow in coming

The lines between energy and agriculture are becoming more blurred. As science advances, the use of biofuels in most parts of the world has continued to increase. One thing that has gradually come to stay and is in recently times attracting significant foreign investment in Ghana is energy crops. The last four years has seen Norwegian, Brazilian, Dutch, Swedish, German and British firms all competing for farmland to grow energy crops in different parts of the country.
Seven private companies from these countries are currently farming about 55,000 hectares of land for biofuels. More investments are expected in the next few years. As host of last October’s World Jatropha Summit, the Ghanaian government made it clear that it is not averse to foreign investment in biofuels. Summit organizers had hoped the meeting will resolve the food versus fuel debate. But as some who attended acknowledge, if the meeting achieved anything, it only heightened the debate.

Joseph Boamah, Chief Director at the Ministry of Agriculture says private investors are free to do what they like with their land. According to him, there are no evidence to show that biofuel growth threatens food production in the country. The national agric workers u-nion disputes that assertion. “This has not come to our notice,” said Boamah.

“Our District Directors haven’t brought this news, extension officers are not complaining, nobody has gone to complain. You know that farming is a private sector activity. Investors have the right to go and negotiate with farmers.” But Ofei Nkansah, General Secretary of the Ghana Agricultural Workers U-nion disagrees. With hundreds of farmers not planting traditional food crops last season, Nkansah believes there is a real risk that the shift to biofuels might trigger the unwanted in future. “Ongoing land grabbing is taking place in parts of the country where the populations are largely farming populations… we believe that the land grabbing business is in actual fact taking vital resources away from farmers,” said Nkansah.

Business Day