File photo: A farmer walks among coffee trees in Kenya (Photo credit: TONY KARUMBA / AFP)
When Benjamin Mbelenzi decided to give castor beans a try, he encouraged as many as 200 other farmers to follow his lead, which we now regret.
At his mango and citrus farm in Wote town, Makueni county, Mbelenzi walks up to a castor tree. Its seeds, twice his height, sit on his head and are difficult to pluck. It also took a year for the saplings to mature from the time they were planted, instead of the six months farmers had been told. Still, they “didn't work out at all,” he says.
Mr Mbelenzi said he had harvested two kilograms of seeds, but selling them would cost more than the $0.40 they were worth. Disillusioned, he spent $35 to have the tree uprooted.
Contracts obtained from farmers show that in 2022, each kilogram of shelled castor beans was offered 25 Kenyan shillings, or $0.25 at the then-current exchange rate. That increased to 35 shillings in 2023. Most of the farmers interviewed said this price was not economically viable.
Mbelenzi's struggles and ultimate defeat should cause concern in the world far beyond Wote. Transportation accounts for a quarter of the world's carbon emissions and is driving the climate crisis. Airplanes and ships cannot yet be electrified. These industries are betting on biofuels to provide electricity and achieve carbon neutrality. But biofuel feedstock often has to be grown by people like Mbelenzi.
Biofuels consist of seed oils, nut oils, and vegetable oils. It can be grown in arid and semi-arid areas. These form the basis for blended fuels that can produce 60% to 90% less carbon dioxide emissions than fossil fuels, depending on the raw materials used.
Italian energy giant Eni aims to produce a quarter of its biofuels from agricultural sources by 2026, with the majority coming from Africa, where it has supply agreements with six countries. Work is underway in Kenya, Congo, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Angola and Rwanda.
The company has begun building a network of agrihubs across Africa to process vegetable oil from non-edible crops, including the three 'C's of castor, croton and cotton, as well as used cooking oil from restaurants and hotels. .
Eni says these crops or raw materials are drought tolerant and suitable for planting in degraded soils, so they do not compete with food crops. A significant drawback of other programs is that food crops are replaced with biofuel stocks.
All of this should mean that local small-scale farmers can grow additional cash crops on land they would otherwise not use.
A promising theory for change
In July 2021, Eni signed an agreement with Kenyan authorities and research institutions. The company aimed to have 25,000 farmers producing 30,000 tons of raw materials annually by 2023. This will increase to 200,000 tons by 2026.
The company used social media campaigns as well as traditional organizations such as cooperatives to recruit farmers. According to Eni, 80,000 farmers with 50,000 hectares of land will have “participated” in the project by the end of 2023.
The next step was to build a leased oilseed collection and processing plant on public land in Warte.
A wote is a corner located between a series of hills. Although semi-arid, the town produces a variety of grains consumed throughout Kenya, and its red soil grows juicy oranges and even juicy mangoes. His second agricultural hub recently became operational in Kwale County, near Mombasa. Two more are planned.
Through contractors such as Selvitsi Agricoli Forestari Africa (Safa), Eni supplies farmers with seeds tested in the horticultural city of Naivasha, more than 200 kilometers from Wote.
Safa grows different varieties of castor beans on vast tracts of land and distributes them to contract farmers in at least 10 counties in Kenya. Safa also collects revenue as an aggregator.
That yield is added to yields from other aggregators and sent to Wote's agricultural hub. It will then be processed and sent to the port of Mombasa before being sent to Eni's bio-refinery in Sicily for conversion into biofuel.
Eni shipped the first batch of processed oil in October 2022. In May 2023, Kenya Airways became the first African airline to operate using Eni's 'sustainable aviation fuel'. Ryanair, one of the world's largest airlines, also signed a deal to acquire Eni.
The little proof in the pudding
This is not fruit farmer Mbelenzi's only disappointing experience growing castor beans. In Nakuru, which Eni lists as one of the top five castor-producing districts, vocal farmers are similarly dissatisfied.
According to contracts obtained from farmers, Safa guaranteed farmers' input and technical support in exchange for exclusive rights to purchase their produce.
One farmer said he was given a quarter kilogram of seeds, given half a day of training without any practical demonstrations, and then left to work on the farm. Her five castor bean trees were grown for two years and she earned a profit of $2. At the time, her two seasons' worth of edible beans earned her $495.
Safa said the money farmers get does not include the additional value they receive from land preparation, seed planting and other extension services.
Farmers in Makueni and Kwale counties say low seed variety, long drying periods and low purchasing prices are causing the fiasco.
Poor yields and low prices are especially frustrating because the work can be tedious. Harvested castor beans must be spread out in the sun for days on end until they pop out of their shells. Because the beans are fragile, farmers cannot use force to remove them like other beans. Since it is light, it takes quite a while to fill 1 kilogram.
Eni and its partners' pitch is that biofuel trees can be grown alongside other crops, providing farmers with additional income. However, farmers say castor bean plants grow tall and block sunlight from reaching other plants.
Between 2020 and 2023, Kenya also suffered its worst drought in 40 years, exacerbated by the fossil fuel climate crisis. Crops grown in these kinds of conditions should be particularly good, but this is a theory that is challenged by harsh reality.
Benjamin Muendo of the Kitise Rural Development Cooperative, which employs 1,095 farmers, says the drought has reduced collective yields and some farmers have dropped out of the program altogether.
The cooperative suggested introducing irrigation as a solution, but Safa said water is limited and the quality of irrigation is poor, adding: “If the land has conditions to irrigate, it is for food crops.'' It should be.
When asked about yield concerns, Eni said their research stations and pilot trials mean that the way they grow their seeds and crops is constantly improving. She also said there were “no complaints” through the company's anonymous complaints mechanism.
But there are many worrying signs on the ground.
Joseph Nzaku, chairman of Makueni Fruit Processing Cooperative in Wote, said his cooperative had enrolled 80 farmers in the biofuel project but they were facing “many challenges”.
Mary Nduku, who started planting castor beans in 2022, said she was promised insecticide to control termites, but never received it.
It is difficult to verify overall production volumes, as both Eni and Safa declined to provide figures when asked. However, even partial images obtained from his fieldwork in one of the major producing regional counties suggest that initial production was very low. Kitise Cooperative Society in Makueni said it had only harvested 10 tonnes from the more than 1,000 farmers who had registered for the 2022 season.
The production amount per farmer is less than 10 kg.
Another indicator is that, according to customs data analyzed by Transport & Environmental, an NGO that promotes sustainable transport, Eni's shipments have fallen to a quarter of its original target of 30,000 tons in 2023. This means that it was not satisfied. continent cooperated with this investigation. Eni denies this, insisting that the figure refers to the biohub's “installed capacity” and not the amount of biofuel produced.
Despite these challenges, Eni plans to grow its projects both in Kenya and the rest of the world. It also plans to secure $210 million in financing to boost its activities in Kenya, including the construction of four agrihubs.
In next week's survey, continent In Transport and the Environment, we look at how this project is also struggling in the Republic of Congo.
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