Uganda: Utilise Bio-Fuels to Fight Poverty

Reports that dairy farmers in New Zealand are cashing in on milk that is now being processed into fuel should be great news to Uganda.

The New Herald newspaper of New Zealand reported last week that farmers in the Indian Ocean island are reaping big from milk sales because the country adopted a policy of utilising milk by processing it into bio fuel (Daily Monitor August 13).
With more than a million litres of milk wasted in the land of milk in western Uganda, there could be no better news than this for a long time. The government just has to pick a leaf from New Zealand, acquire the technology and build the necessary capacity to produce much needed fuel that is central to the economy of this country.

A few weeks ago Daily Monitor reported that a local wild shrub – the jatropha plant – produces seeds that can be dried and crushed to produce bio-fuel.

Britain, with all its energy resources, has already started on building a processing plant to generate at least 50 megawatts of electricity from this plant.

Amazingly, Britain does not have the raw materials for the plant and will depend on countries mostly in Africa, which can grow and sell the seeds for it to generate power.

The question is why can’t the government use these opportunities to solve this energy problem?

The project may not get funding from the multinational corporations since the countries from which they get money are the biggest beneficiaries of the oil industry. But the East African states can collectively solve that hurdle through the East African Community since they all face a problem of fuel.

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