Turning the Mau into a blessing

Efforts are in full gear to replant trees in Mau. Planting the much-acclaimed biofuel producing plant, jatropha, may provide one the biggest social-economic growth opportunities for Kenya.

I further recommend that the recently initiated tree-planting exercise by the Ministry of Education consider adopting jatropha as the tree of choice.

The biofuel industry is growing rapidly as a result of high petroleum prices and increasing concerns about global climate change. In Africa, jatropha curcas is considered to be one of the most viable candidates for biodiesel feedstock, mostly due to its adaptability to arid and semi-arid areas.

The Ministry of Energy draft strategy for developing the biodiesel industry recommends the adoption of jatropha biofuel from processed seeds.

Jatropha is a small tree reaching a height of upto five metres. In Kenya, it is natural in bushlands and along rivers in the western, central and coastal areas in altitudes of 0-1,650 metres above sea level.

For example, around the Ng’urmani area of Kajiado District, the local population has extensively planted jatropha as a hedge and boundary marker.

In Mpeketoni, a jatropha biodiesel driven power station funded by the Norwegian Church Aid and the German NGO, GTZ, now caters for part of the electricity needs of Lamu District. But what has this got to do with Mau re-afforestation?

Green Africa Foundation, a Nairobi-based organisation, has been at the forefront in promoting jatropha farming. Experience shows that with 15,000 hectares of jatropha, it is possible to get enough biodiesel to run a medium-sized power station similar to that in Mpeketoni.

According to the foundation, large-scale productions of between 20,000 to 30,000 hectares make a viable investment. Such plantations require high capital investment outlay of a minimum $5 million, but have the potential to yield high quantities of biodiesel.

Those spearheading the Mau re-afforestation may, therefore, seriously want to consider the potential benefits of attracting large-scale jatropha plantations to that region.

A 2007 World Bank sponsored study titled “Jatropha Curcas Biodiesel Production in Kenya” found that “current market conditions do not make jatropha production an attractive investment for smallholder farmers in Kenya”.

The report, therefore, advocated considering “large-scale production where private enterprises take the initiative to produce large amounts of biodiesel and locals are incorporated into the production process as wage labourers on plantations or contract suppliers of seed”.

In essence, large-scale jatropha plantations in Mau could have a ripple effect in Kenya where many small-scale farmers could use their current hedges to contribute to the oil production capacity.

The study, however, lamented the difficulty of establishing large-scale jatropha plantations, even in semi-arid areas, without disturbing local communities.

For example, converting large tracts of “idle” land to jatropha plantations has potential negative social-economic impacts on pastoralist communities. The re-afforestation of Mau provides a unique opportunity to have large-scale jatropha plantations without such negative consequence.

Even more, large-scale jatropha plantations will enable Kenya benefit from the international Clean Development Mechanism market for carbon credits, a benefit almost unavailable to small-scale jatropha farmers.

Mr Mungai is a lecturer at Strathmore Business School