3.4.1

Jatropha in Ghana

This section deals with a thorny problem that occurs with all plantation crops, which is best described as "how to deal with the locals.” What counts for ananas, bananas, coffee, or cocoa, also counts for Jatropha. Some plantation companies are being accused of being "land grabbers,” expelling farmers from their own land. This policy is of course inexcusable. The only way to grow Jatropha successfully is to practice "socially responsible investing:” you earn your money, but you also do good and do well for the farmers. Some NGOs, such as Friends of The Earth, take great pleasure in regularly highlighting what goes wrong with Jatropha. They take a few bad examples, especially in India and Africa, and conclude that Jatropha in general is a useless plant (e. g., "Biofuel ‘wonder-crop’ Jatropha fails to deliver”; www. foei. org). I do not agree with that at all. In every industry imaginable there are bad cases, and in Jatropha farming there are good and bad examples as well.

So far very little research has been published about Jatropha in China, and I feel privileged to give you an in-depth view on plantations and best practices in China in Chapter 12.

We now turn to Ghana, which is becoming the largest plantation country in Africa south of the equator.

There is a scramble for land in Ghana by multinationals and local companies in partnership with foreigners vigorously pursuing plans for the cultivation of the Jatropha for its prized oil seed to produce biodiesel for export. According to Friends of the Earth, over 20 companies from various countries are in Ghana acquiring land to cultivate non-food crops and other crops for the production of ethanol and biodiesel, mostly for export. These companies come from Brazil, Italy, Norway, Israel, China, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, and India. They are culti­vating fields in the Volta, Brong Ahafo, Ashanti, Eastern, and Northern regions of Ghana. The main non-food crop that these companies are planting is Jatropha.

One of the companies, Agroils of Italy, is cultivating 10 000 hectares of Jatropha in Yeji in the Brong Ahafo region. The Israeli company Galten has acquired 100 000 hectares of land and an Indian company is requesting for 50 000 hectares of land from the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) to cultivate Jatropha.

A company from The Netherlands has started a pilot project on 10 acres in the northern region and the Chinese are also undertaking a pilot project. Gold Star Farms Ltd. intends to cultivate 5 million acres of land to plant Jatropha for the production of biofuels for export. A Norwegian company, ScanFuel Ltd., has started operations outside Kumasi in the Ashanti region to produce biofuel. The company aims to start initial cultivation of Jatropha seeds on 10 000 hectares of land. The company, which has a Ghanaian subsidiary, ScanFuel Ghana Ltd., says its Ghanaian unit has contracted about 400 000 hectares of land, with up to 60% reserved for biofuel production, "not less” than 30% for food production, and the remainder for biodiversity buffer zones. Another Norwegian company, Biofuels Africa Ltd., the only one among the about 20 biofuels companies cultivating Jatropha to receive an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) permit from Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which covers 23 762.45 hectares of its project area, is operating in two locations.

Even though Ghana has no policy, regulations, or structures in place for the biofuels industry, any company cultivating anything more than 10 hectares is required to conduct an EIA for approval by Ghana’s EPA.

All together, these companies are cultivating the Jatropha plant on millions of hectares of land with the hope of producing biofuels for export.

3.4.2