Mozambique fuels farming debate

There's more to the biofuels debate than the impact on food security. One of the key concerns is that land availability for food production will diminish as farmers switch to producing crops for fuel, but a recent World Bank study notes that food security depends far more on a farmer's capacity to work the land than on the availability of land itself. A report from IRIN states: "Only 5 million of Mozambique's 36 million cultivable hectares are being farmed; of the remainder, some 13 percent was once cultivated but now lies fallow."

Why? A consultant for the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Programme for Biomass Energy Conservation says, "Infrastructure is a constraint for investors and small farmers." The question here is whether investment in biofuels infrastructure will benefit farmers regardless of what they choose to grow. Mozambique is hoping that labour-intensive large-scale farming, as well as small family farms, will become sustainable with investments by multinational corporations like CAMEC. But they are experiencing challenges across the production process, from poor harvesting and storage practices destroying crops, to conflicts over water for irrigation.

In the best-case scenario, biofuel projects will bring infrastructure improvements that also benefit food producers, while entrepreneurs will invest in improving supply lines from the level of the family farm to a network of transporters, buyers and sellers.

Meanwhile, production from Mozambique's new biodiesel plant (opened in August by Ecomoz, with a capacity of 5,000 litres an hour) has slowed to a trickle because crops intended as raw materials are not of adequate quality. However, if biofuels teething problems can be sorted out, some analysts believe that "achieving full energy independence is well within reach" for Mozambique, reports DownstreamToday.com. With the extent of land available for producing cassava, sugarcane and jatropha, and investments of more than $658 million promised from several sources, it just might happen.