Late last year, Ghana hosted an UNCTAD-led international workshop on the development of a biofuels industry in West-Africa, which resulted in the establishment of a common fund, to which the Indian government contributed US$250 million. The initiative also saw the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development release US$35 million for biodiesel development in Ghana.
Ghana is also stimulating the development of a local biofuels industry in its own right through a series of small-scale initiatives. An example comes from the environment ministry, which recently organised a 'jatropha implementation workshop.'
The deputy minister of the environment ministry, Abraham Dwuma Odoom, announced that the government has created a 15 billion cedis (US$1.6 million) fund for the development of Jatropha curcas plantations accross the country. Odoom, who is also the chairman of the Jatropha Implementation Committee, said some three billion cedis of the fund had been released for the production of seeds and seedlings, while the remaining 12 billion was ready at the banks to be accessed by persons interested in the cultivation of jatropha.
Odoom added that quality seeds were available for cultivation of about 2,500 hectares of land and gave the assurance that by 2008 there would be seeds to cultivate nearly 5,000 hectares of land. He cautioned the banks not to sit on the money, but to release it in time for successful implementation of jatropha projects.
Brown Matthew Oppong, a senior rural development official, said a US$ 5 million fund meant for the rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems could also be accessed by jatropha projects. This is so because the crop can help prevent soil erosion, and re-green degraded lands.
A concrete example of a biodiesel project was presented by Onua Amoah, whose company Anuanom Industries has installed a 500-ton capacity machine for processing jatropha seeds into biodiesel at Gomoa Pomadze in Ghana's Central region. The company has also installed a 2000-ton capacity equipment for producing organic fertilizer from the by-product of the biodiesel. He assured farmers that there is a ready market for the crop, allaying fears that jatropha would suffer the ordeal farmers went through in marketing crops like coffee, sunflower and cashew.
Biopact
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