Unleashing the full potential of

Biomass in Africa: Embracing

Innovative Pathways

Author: Richard Seshié Ahedor

Abstract

Biomass, a renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms, such

as wood, waste, (hydrogen) gas, and alcohol fuels. 1

This paper advocates the use of a system-based approach that could apply to the micro-collection of

Biomass with the potential to substantially enhance energy security, fight hunger, deforestation and

climate change in Africa and other developing countries.

It starts by pointing out to a bigger role Agricultural biomass could assume beyond export biofuels

production – to actually provision biochar and sustainable bioenergy including traditional cooking fuels

such as wood biomass and charcoal to meet local people expectations.

It promotes the cross-participation of different business sectors such as mobile telecommunication

carriers and transportation actors to design an innovative ecosystem for biomass exploitation that could

positively impact the wellbeing of rural communities.

It finally explores the association between sustainable tree farming, energy wood plantations,

agricultural biomass and biomass technology exploitation that could cater for the energy needs of

different socio-economic strata – offering Côte d’Ivoire, a Western African country as a solution case

study.

1. Wikipedia Definition of Biomass

I. Agricultural Biomass contributing towards Sustainable Bioenergy and a performing Agriculture

There are two stories happening in Africa that seem to share few in common, but where agricultural

biomass could step in and provide lasting solutions. One story is about energy poverty; the second is

about agricultural un-productivity.

Wood and charcoal are the main energy sources for more than two billion people, particularly in

developing countries2

. In Africa over 90 % of the wood taken from forests is woodfuel3

; consumed

directly as firewood or transformed into charcoal as it presents the advantages of lasting longer, burning

hotter and being lighter to transport among other reasons.

More than 80 % of woodfuel is used in urban areas, making charcoal the most important source of

household energy in many African cities4

. Urban dwellers use it for cooking and heating but it is also

essential to small and medium scale trades or industries such as baking, brewing, textile manufacture

and brick-making. The current production of charcoal often relies on unsustainable harvesting practices

such as clear-cutting.

For rural users, firewood remains the main fuel which is mostly collected for free, consumed under open

fires or through traditional wood burning stoves.

Charcoal consumption has shown a constant increase in the last twenty years and estimates are that the

majority of African households will continue depending on traditional fuels to meet their daily energy

needs for many decades to come5

. Currently, woody biomass is the primary source but waste

agricultural biomass (wheat straw, peanut-shell, rice husk, sugar cane bagasse, coffee husk, paddy straw

and virtually every type of waste and by-product) could be leveraged as an additional renewable supply

source for firewood, charcoal production or even to leapfrog to cleaner energy sources.

Technologies exist today that can turn biomass into biomass briquettes, biogas, heat and electricity.

They include biomass gasification systems for the production of biogas, biomass-fired combined heat,

power and char (CHCP) systems and decentralized power plants that can provide competitive and

reliable electricity on a household or village scale.

2. FAO Sustainable Wood Energy 3. Amous, Samir: The Role of Wood Energy in Africa. WETT Regional Studies, FAO 1997 4. Siebel, André: Charcoal in Africa: Importance, Problems and Possible Solution Strategies 5. Kituyi, Evans: Towards Sustainable Charcoal Production and Use: a Systems Approach

One case worth mentioning has been the use of the jatropha curcas crop, one of the best candidates

for biodiesel production to generate rural electricity in Mali, a proof of the innovations that can emerge

from shifting one’s mindset to serve local markets. 6

The valorization of waste agricultural biomass offers benefits that extend also to Agriculture.

Major deforestation has long taken place in Africa to accommodate new land for settlements or for

practicing a slash and burn agriculture. This is the direct result of rural farmers’ shifting cultivations, to

move away from unproductive land after some years of cultivation.

Pyrolizing agricultural waste can produce Biochar that can amend or enrich average tropic poor soils or

be used as an organic fertilizer to boost yields. Biochar is also widely known to sequester considerable

quantities of carbon in that way.

Equipments exist today that can both produce charcoal, gas, wood tar and biochar.

All in all, my favorite farmer Mara can now exploit his agricultural waste to either create an additional

income stream if sold as a raw material for producing biomass briquettes or charcoal; either curbing

slash and burn practices, contributing to land regeneration, improving agricultural yields, sequestering

carbon or to provide modern sustainable bioenergy.

Once we can appreciate different local contexts, appropriate mixes of those possibilities in addition to

new unforeseen innovations can be used to make rural communities thrive.

Now, an essential question would be: How do we efficiently achieve the mass collection of biomass

given the fact there are approximately 450 million small farm units (up to two hectares) in non-OECD

countries? 7

We offer a compelling solution in the next chapter.

6. Garalo Bagani Yelen Jatropha-Fuelled Rural Electrification Project in Mali 7. http://www.syngentafoundation.org/index.cfm?pageID=467.

II. A new ecosystem of services for biomass (and other profitable waste) micro-collection

There is no question smallholder farmers can opt to install small-scale biogas digesters or turn their

agricultural waste into fertilizers for their sole use or that of their household.

But what happens to any excess waste? What happens when that waste might serve a village-level or

municipality decentralized power plant and therefore must be mass collected?

Furthermore, what happens to raw agricultural commodities (then the resulting waste) that reach

cities? How can we collect those micro-quantities within cities? Of course, much of that agro waste can

be disposed in municipality bins; yet some agro waste such as coconut shells, consumed maize cobs or

stalk might prove more interesting to be collected before ending up as municipality waste.

Mobile telephone technology and smart transportation in our sense could contribute towards creating

an ecosystem of services suited for developing countries’ realities - to adequately collect that biomass,

and beyond what we call profitable waste.

Profitable waste is waste that can be monetized; it extends beyond biomass to include electronic waste,

plastic bottles, aluminum cans, iron-containing elements and much more. In Africa, decades-old

informal waste sectors in paper collection, plastic bottles and aluminum cans exist. Since we are

uncovering new ways to reuse waste materials worldwide, the list would get bigger.

If we want all African citizens, not just informal collectors to care a little more than the ‘none of my

business’ attitude we observe today; we need to create incentives by giving them a share of this new

resulting wealth. Such a paradigm shift would mean increased citizen participation.

We don’t see any technology doing it better than mobile phone technology. Africa was not only able to

leap to mobile phone technology but also registers more than 300 million phone subscribers8

. Mobile

telephone technology is driving a wave of innovations in health, jobs, agriculture with such new terms as

m-health, m-agriculture; empowering people to access old services in an easier way or new services all

together. That same way, we would like coin the term M-WASTE, standing for mobile for waste that

could be a whole new exploring field that should look at addressing waste challenges.

8. http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/newslog/Africa+Has+300+Million+Mobile+Phone+Subscribers.aspx

Focusing back on Biomass and more broadly profitable waste micro-collection, our suggested ecosystem

is comprised of three services:

1. The creation of an Interactive Voice Response (for non-literates persons) and an open-source USSD

application (for literates) dedicated to profitable waste location and collection.

An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) allows users to access a company’s database via a telephone

keypad or by speech recognition, after which they can service their own inquiries by following the

instructions. IVR systems can respond with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio to further

direct users on how to proceed. They can be used to control almost any function where the interface

can be broken down into a series of simple menu choices9

.

Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) for their part is commonly used by pre-paid GSM

cellular phones to query the available balance. It is a protocol used by GSM cellular telephones to

communicate with the service provider's computers. USSD can be used for prepaid callback service,

location-based content services, menu-based information services, and as part of configuring the phone

on the network. It is worth noting that all GSM phones have USSD capability10

.

The IVR and USSD applications act in our case as a virtual direct exchange platform which allows sellers

and buyers to discover each other and deal. Practically, audio content (with different local dialect

versions/options) and text content will be hosted within IVR or USSD applications. This content would

present a list of wanted profitable waste materials and their pricing, perhaps more.

Any rural or urban citizen knows he can call or dial in for free and must do so from where his waste

depot is. Once he calls or dials in, both applications have location-aware features that direct this

individual to the nearest collection point or he receives an SMS, push USSD message or call that would

let him know the date and time of the pick-up by a collector. If the waste stream is regular, the

individual or waste owner and the waste collector can establish an ongoing relationship.

The IVR and USSD applications can be of common use and ownership by all waste operators within a

given territory and managed by a dedicated entity.

2. Cycle Collectors. A bicycle can be a clean, convenient mode of collection and transportation

of agro waste micro-quantities (they don’t generally smell), especially suited for rural areas. Those

bicycles could be furthermore adapted to carry extra load such as the examples of Cycle for Health11

.

9. Wikipedia Definition of an IVR 10. Wikipedia Definition of an USSD 11. http://twowheeledfoundation.org/gallery.aspx

The dedicated entity managing the IVR and USSD applications or prominent waste collectors themselves

could run an independent network of rural cycle collectors according to concentrated waste collection

zones.

A prolongation of the ISSD and IVR supportive infrastructure could consist of some gadgets (e.g. smart

phones enabled with a real-time mapping application) that provide to the cycle operator, live

information and precise location about new waste depots for collection.

In doing so, new jobs in the community are created and can be sustained with the operator and his

bicycle fulfilling other services; acting for example as mobile calls mobile stations12

or carrying villagers’

loads. The added services can only be restricted by our own imagination.

3. Payments. A majority of Africans spend between 7 to 17% of their monthly disposable income in

mobile expenditure13

. Mobile payments are also rising in the continent. One idea could be to

remunerate waste owners with airtime as an addition or radical replacement to cash. This option also

presents significant advantages such as instant payment, airtime availability with bicycle operators. Yet,

this possibility should be assessed furthermore.

This model contains evidence of some upfront costs, technological ability and more that should bring

private donors, public decision makers, non governmental organizations and the private sector to join

forces. Mobile telecommunication companies especially, are given a unique opportunity to ramp up the

use of their infrastructure and subscribers to address socio-economic issues, waste being of prime

importance.

12. Ugandan Bodafones 13. Alison Gillwald & Christoph Stork: ICT access and usage in Africa p.17

III. Biomass in the Energy Mix: A solution case study for Côte d’Ivoire

Our intention is not to provide a holistic picture of the electricity/energy situation of Côte d’Ivoire. We

rather advocate the use of alternative sources to clear-cut wood represented in coconut shells and

sustainably farmed trees to produce charcoal. We also offer some suggestions on biomass-powered

energy solutions for rural communities.

Cote d’Ivoire is a country in West Africa which forest cover has been intensely depleted for decades to

make way for agricultural land, as export wood products or to produce charcoal. From a forest cover of

16 millions hectares in the 1960s, the most optimistic estimations give 2.5 millions of hectares today14

.

The capital city, Abidjan with its 5 million inhabitants stands at a demand of 200-250,000 tons of

charcoal alone and 400,000 tons overall in the country, making it the major source of cooking fuel .

2/3 of this charcoal is produced illegally and the charcoal reaches Abidjan from locations as far as 200

km from the hinterland. 15

Grand-Bassam, a peripheral city (20 km from Abidjan) is part of a 50.000 hectare coconut farming zone

where are produced annually over 57.000 tons of coconut kernel, involving over 20,000 farmers and

their families. Those seemingly positive numbers hide the fact that this sector has been under a total

distress for over a decade. Although considered a minority culture in the country but one that is vital for

coastal people; coconut was once, one of the commodity darlings in the eyes of Côte d’Ivoire public

leadership. However, a poorly managed privatization process in 1996 resulted into negative outcomes

for this sector. The public agricultural aid and supportive framework aimed at farmers was abolished,

private players were believed to not have respected many terms of the new ownership contract which

prompted enormous difficulties vis-à-vis farmers and saw most of those companies leaving; farmers

presiding over that land with little success. Today, the coconut plantations are aged and overexploited;

most of the production is sold locally as whole nuts in cities and saw the irruption of vulture-like middle

men impoverishing furthermore farmers. Still, the land cultivated has upped from 46.000 hectares in

2000 to 50.000 hectares today16

and a minority of farmers converted to palm oil production –

demonstrating the resilience of this sector in the face of all those challenges.

14. Ministry of Plan and Development of Côte d’Ivoire - Conditions du développement durable 2010 15. http://fratmat.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=261:sortie-de-crise-lonudi-lutte-contre-la-pauvrete-des-jeunes-dans-les-pays-du-fleuve-mano&catid=34:politique&showall=1 16. http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200912230764.html

By-products of coconut never saw a true valorization process in Côte d’Ivoire. Unlike India, the

Philippines or even Mozambique; coconut palm trees can be used for dishes, the fiber can be turned

into geo textiles or better into coir-based timber. Coconut oil can generate biodiesel and the shells can

serve as raw material to produce charcoal and activated carbon.

On one side then, we have clear-cut wood and often bushfires resulting from the current method of

charcoal production. On another side, we have 50,000 hectares of land close to the capital city Abidjan,

inhabited by near unproductive coconuts and distressed farmers, which coconut shells can be used to

produce a greener charcoal and nearly everything else from the coconut can be valorized. For us, this is

an aberration that needs some fixing.

Millions of coconut shells (with a proportion of lesser than 5% being used for traditional fish drying and

minor purposes) could be turned into green charcoal to consequently serve Abidjan.

In 2009, the National Authority for Forest Development also began a pilot exploitation of a wood energy

plantation (growing the acacia simea species), one that regenerates quickly and has a higher calorific

value to produce charcoal17

. Another separate and unnoticed initiative led by the National Center for

Agricultural Research with the intention to revitalize coconut plantations, concluded that the association

of a new variety of coconut with the acacia auriculiformis or the acacia mangium (the same acacia tree

family) would boost coconut yields by over 10% and that the acacia could be cut down or regularly

coppiced to produce charcoal18

. Our calculations estimate that between 10-15% of the charcoal needs of

Abidjan could be catered for by coconut shells, that volume further increasing if we have an association

acacia-coconut and virtually a total coverage if sustainably managed, dedicated acacia-based wood

energy plantations are cultivated on the outskirts of the city as in the case of Ouagadougou, Burkina

Faso19

. A single percentage point of coconut or acacia-based charcoal could potentially avoid the cutting

down of thousands of hectares of cleared forest.

By so doing, coconut charcoal could undoubtedly provide an additional income for coconut farmers and

a renewable, cleaner source of energy for poor households in the city.

17. http://fratmat.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=261:sortie-de-crise-lonudi-lutte-contre-la-pauvrete-des-jeunes-dans-les-pays-du-fleuve-mano&catid=34:politique&showall=1 18. http://www.cnra.ci/downloads/ftec_association_cocotier_acacia.pdf 19. FAO Sustainable Wood Energy

In respect of biomass-powered energy solutions for rural communities, the rural landscape in Côte

d’Ivoire presents a blend of agro-industrial complexes based on commodities such as oil palm, rubber or

sugar cane while hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers cultivate cocoa, coffee and areca nuts

among others.

In recent years, the Government has intensified a rural village electrification program, connecting

villages to the distribution system (the national grid is run on natural gas) that resulted into a national

coverage rate of 28.3% and a total population access rate of 70.9%, of which only 24.3% of rural

households are concerned20

. It might be helpful to replicate and adapt some interesting innovations of

biomass-based energy solutions pioneered elsewhere to increase that rate.

Since sizable amounts of land have been overexploited and as a result, are considered unsuitable for

export commodities cultivation and left vacant – we may look at a priority transformation of agro waste

that results into biochar to regenerate or enrich existing lands.

As an example, Cote d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cocoa cultivated by over 800,000 farmers

and providing direct and indirect income to over 6,000,000 people21

. Millions of cocoa pods are left lying

on the ground (that minimally enriches the soil) but could be turned into combined heat, power and

char. 22

The case for cooking in rural areas also remains an entire preoccupation as one finds LPG gas after

leaving charcoal behind in the energy ladder in Côte d’Ivoire. Structural and conjectural issues lead to

chronic shortages of LPG gas in cities, let alone rural villages which are not supplied. Small-scale biogas

digesters at a household or village level

could be looked upon as well as biomass stoves that can use any

sort of agro waste23

as fuel may prove to be serious alternatives to consider.

20. ECOWAS - Atlas énergétique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest – Fiche pays Côte d’Ivoire 21. http://www.cargill.com/corporate-responsibility/pov/cocoa-sourcing/cote-divoire-wafrica/index.jsp 22. Interesting example of the Biochar Fund 23. Interesting example of the Legacy Foundation