Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Mister Wong
Bookmarks.cc
Digg
Del.icio.us
Slashdot
Netscape
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Googlize this
Blinklist
Facebook
Wikio
Diggita
Hear this text
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
Responding to Mboweni’s comments at the time, Grain SA’s John Purchase told SABC News that “…obviously there is a concern currently on the price of food, we have a shortage this year, but that is primarily because of the drought situation – the very serious drought. This is typical of one in 15 years of drought and we must not let it concern us too much.”
At that stage, the government’s long-awaited biofuels industrial strategy had yet to be finalised. Much was at stake, not least the future of the multi-million rand maize-to-ethanol plant in Bothaville.
Unsurprisingly, lobbying on both sides of the debate was intense. If the biofuels industry had its own future to consider, the government was looking ahead to the 2009 elections.
Cabinet approved the strategy in December. Intended to fast-track biofuel development within South Africa, the initiative was hailed in some quarters as an audacious bid to use alternative energy as a buffer to the impact of rising crude oil prices. However, this perception was tempered by a revised target of 2% biofuel production by 2013, down from the original target of 4.5%. At the time, Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica cited agricultural concerns in justification of the revised target, echoing Mboweni’s earlier sentiments.
More controversially, the biofuels industrial strategy excluded maize as a source of feedstock. Predictably, Grain SA expressed considerable disappointment, with general manager Kobus Laubscher lamenting the lack of an alternative maize market in years of surplus production.
Clearly, opinion is divided between optimists who maintain that food production will be sufficient to feed the population as well as supply alternative fuel producers, and pessimists who believe that South Africa’s food security is simply too fragile to warrant the risk of embracing maize-to-ethanol too enthusiastically.
These hopes and fears were echoed and amplified at a conference in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in December last year. Some 300 experts in the field debated the potential food security threat posed by biofuels outweighs potential savings in fossil fuels.
Weighing in on the side of the optimists, International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering managing director Paul Ginies said, “No matter what we say, today biofuels represent a pragmatic solution in light of the energy problems in relation to soaring oil prices.”
Ginies, whose company is based in Ougadougou, put forward a view similar to that previously expressed by Grain SA: the perception that biofuel farming competes with food production is false. He said that the two types of production could easily be reconciled, citing the use of biofuel by-products as livestock feed or crop fertiliser as an example.
The opposing view was expressed by Moussa Hassane, managing director of Niger’s National nstitute of Agronomy Research, who stressed that Africa would do well to err on the side of caution: “Why the particular interest in biofuel production in Africa? Africa has always been a leading raw material reserve tank for the West,” he said, adding, “Africa constitutes the ideal site for the production of biofuels. But of what benefit is that to the continent?”
Could that be done without posing a danger to food production? Hassane’s doubts were supported by Maurizio Cocchi, representing Energy Transport Agriculture, an Italian renewable energy NGO: “I am happy that African countries understood … the environmental risks and threats to food security related to biofuel production. There are still uncertainties that would require research.”
A middle way was suggested by Daniel Ballerini, representing Enerbio, a French bio-energy research institute. Ballerini advocated limiting biofuel use: for example, it could be confined to tractors and excluded from cars until food security issues were cleared up. In his view, good land should be kept aside for food production; biofuel feedstock should be cultivated on less favourable ground.
Food prices have risen dramatically around the world, even triggering riots in West Africa. Food security is clearly not an issue that anyone can afford to be complacent about. Or, as Ethanol Africa’s Johan Hoffman said in 2006, “Africans have the potential to become the Arabs of the biofuel industry” – but should they?
In South Africa, the latest development around maize consists of something of a turnaround on the part of government. Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana met with other industry role players in early January to discuss using surplus maize to produce ethanol. As a result of the discussions -- qualified by Grain SA as “very positive” -- Ethanol Africa may now apply for a licence to produce ethanol.
Maize-to-ethanol proponents claim that lifting the maize ban will have a positive economic spin-off: both maize production and overall land usage will increase.
According to Kobus Laubscher, “Local [maize] demands is about nine million tons and when local production exceeds that it puts downward pressure on the maize price, hitting the long-term confidence of the industry.”
Greg Penfold
