Biofuels in Tanzania: Status, Opportunities and Challenges

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Anthony M. Mshandete.J. Appl. Biosci. 2011. Biofuels in Tanzania: Status, Opportunities and challengesfull range of activities, which are required to bring aproduct or service from conception, through thedifferent phases of production, delivery to finalconsumers, and final disposal after use (Kaplinsky &Morris, 2001). Detailed features of biofuel value chainactivities have been reported recently by Kondili &Kaldellis (2007). However, in summary the biofuelsvalue chain includes a number of activities mainly,biomass production, biomass processing andbioproduct trading/marketing. Within a developmentperspective, the value chain framework can be used toanalyze value chains and identify constraints andopportunities for development (Messemeker, 2008).In Tanzania some biofuel development initiatives bylocal and multinational investors are taking place atdifferent stages. In Tanzania’s context, a transitiontowards biofuels based energy regime is still in a veryearly phase and that its future is still unclear. It alsofollows that with regard to biofuel value chain, littleresearch that have been done to date and literatureavailable reveals that limited local researchinfrastructure is one of the barrier in biofuels industrydevelopment. Also biofuel value chain mapping havebeen identified as one of the challenges in biofuel valuechain. There is no commercial biofuel production inTanzania. Currently several stakeholders are involvedin biofuel development in the field of straight jatropha oilproduction. Therefore, most of biofuel value chaininformation or studies available for Tanzania are onJatropha biofuel crop and products. A study onprospects for Jatropha biofuels in Tanzania withemphasis on analysis of strategic niche managementby Eijck & Romjin (2008) showed that Tanzania’sexisting energy regime and agricultural regime remainprominent barriers. However, mapping of Jatrophabiofuel value chain by Eijck & Romjin (2008) revealedthat Jatropha production value chain production involvegrowing the plant and harvesting the seeds, processingand usage stage where the oil and seed cake areconsumed or further processed to generate finalproducts. On the other hand a study on assessment ofthe Jatropha value chain and its potential for pro-poorbiofuel development in Northern Tanzania pro-poorbiofuel by Messemaker, (2008) concluded that there islittle knowledge on important issues such as productioncosts and feasibility compared to other crops. Ingeneral, Jatropha requires common inputs such asnutrients, water and farm management, therebycompeting with food and other crops. Hence, it is notthe promising biofuel crop it is said to be. Under certainconditions, the Jatropha value chain could contribute topro-poor biofuel development in Northern Tanzania. Butfor now it is still in an incipient stage. With regard tovalue chain governance, the study showed that somestakeholders have taken steps towards acquiringgovernance in the chain, but in practice have littlepower over other actors yet. The Jatropha business inTanzania is yet to be linked with global value chain. Afeasibility study on local biofuel production to be linkedto the energy production for use in telecommunicationapplication in South Eastern of Tanzania wasconducted by Diligent energy Services and AmecoEnvironment Services of the Netherlands in 2006. Thestudy identified functions related to biofuel production inTanzania such as consumption (usage) of either ofSVO and biodiesel as fuel that are suitable for using inthe diesel generators for the mobile phone antennas.The study also identified marketing functioning as partof the chain. Another study carried out by MMA (2007)on Jatropha subsector emphasized on Jatropha soapvalue chain analysis. The stakeholders in Jatrophabased biofuel up to oil production include producers,collectors, collection centers, agents and transporters.The chain extends to distribution, medical stores andsupermarket in Jatropha soap production chain. Thereis still lot of production drive and there isunderstandably tension between market developmentand production base development at this stage of valuechain. Governance in a soap value chain exhibits thedegree of organization and interactions in a valuechain. Value chain is still developing hence there is littlegovernance exhibited by actors/outside agents in thischain (MMA, 2007).From the preceding few studies on biofuel value chain itcan be inferred that biofuel value chain analysis inTanzania relates especially to the production,marketing, distribution and support of biofuel basedcrops. Biofuel development and production could be aviable business proposition for biofuel growers inTanzania due to the fact the demand for biofuel ispresumably very large although much of it is still latent.It can be preliminary concluded that that there are stillmany obstacles in Tanzania's prevailing energy regimeto the biofuel transition. The development of biofuels isstill in an early phase hence more data and know howneed to be gathered on Tanzania's biofuels potential,implications and challenges on biofuel value chain andhow to respond and mitigate/and adapt to thosechallenges.2696
Anthony M. Mshandete.J. Appl. Biosci. 2011. Biofuels in Tanzania: Status, Opportunities and challengesLand tenure issues: Land tenure involves securingaccess to land and management of land resources. Itinvolves who can hold and use the land and itsresources at specified duration and conditions (Lal,2006). Land is a finite valuable commodity which firstgeneration biofuels investors are keen to exploit togrow energy crops. Worldwide the current increasinglybiofuels demand for transportation is likely to present asignificant pressure on land resource use across theglobe. Nonetheless access to land is one of thefundamental preconditions to fight against rural hungerand poverty. The rapid growth in demand for biofuelshas lead to expansion of biofuel production, which islikely to lead to greater competition for access to land(FAO, 2008b).In Tanzania even though the aggregate picture of landdevoted to biofuel is uncertain, for those living inlocations affected by individual biofuel projects thereare real concerns about their impact on those whodepend on the land acquired for their livelihoods (Sulle& Nelson, 2009b; Sulle, 2009b). Women compared tomen own very little land. Instead, women often usecommunal land to grow crops, collect nuts, grazeanimals or collect firewood. But this very same land isbeing targeted for biofuel investment (Action Aid, 2010).The prevailing land acquisition for biofuels by foreigninvestors particularly in Africa partly is promoted bypolicy and legislative reforms aimed to attract investorsto Africa and foreign Governments mainly Europe andUSA promoting acquisition of farmland in foreigncountries for biofuel production and/or biofuelfeedstock’s to meet their biofuel blending mandatetargets stipulated in their respective biofuel policies(Oxfam International, 2008; Christian Aid, 2009; Actionaid, 2010). The ongoing fast-evolving biofuelinvestment in developing countries definitely createsopportunities, challenges as well as risks (OxfamInternational, 2008). Large-scale land acquisitions canresult in local people losing access to the resources onwhich they depend for their food security andlivelihoods (Lal, 2006). Local residents may be directlydispossessed of the land they live on, often their longstandingheritage (Cotula et al., 2008; 2009). The futureland requirements for biofuel production are uncertain,what is certain is the acquisition of land in Africancountries for agricultural production, for both food andbiofuel crops (Scott, 2009). Unfortunately, one of theside effects of biofuel targets in which companies orrich and powerful investors rush to buy up new land,potentially displacing vulnerable communities whoserights to the land are poorly protected (Christian Aid,2009). On the other hand, increase in pressure onaccess to land in developing countries and the sheerspeed of biofuel expansion may generate newpressures on land tenure arrangements, leading toalienation (IUCN, 2007). There is considerable fear thatthe poor may either lease, sell or be forced to relocateas the rush to meet increasing demand for land forbiofuel crops production (Raswant et al., 2008). One ofkey reasons for Africa’s attractiveness to outsideinvestor is due to the perception that there are vastareas of unused or underutilized land, which can bereadily given over to grow biofuel feedstock’s (Cotula etal., 2008; 2009). Also Africa is said to have most of theunderutilized fertile land in the world (Henrique, 2008)as well as land values being very, very inexpensive inAfrica (Jung-a et al., 2008).In Tanzania land ownership remains restrictive; underthe Land Act of 1999, all land in Tanzania belongs tothe state. However, non-citizen investors may occupyland for investment purposes through a governmentgrantedright of occupancy, through derivative rights, orthrough sub-leases through a granted right ofoccupancy. Rights of occupancy and derivative rightsmay be granted for periods up to 99 years and arerenewable (TIC, 2008,). Furthermore, in Tanzania,investors can lease and use ‘general land’. Details ofthe procedures of how land can be transferred from‘village’ to ‘general’ with the permission of the localcommunity has been reported recently by Sulle(2009b). Although, land acquisition in Tanzania isdifficult and time consuming, many Tanzanian citizens,local and international NGOs oppose land acquisitionby foreign investors. This opposition is mainly based onnegative experiences in the past with different cropsand resources. There is considerable public fear thatthe same will happen when large patches of land will beexploited for biofuels by foreign investors (Caniëls &Romijn, 2009).Tanzania is one of the African countries that haveattracted many initiatives in the line of biofuel businessand the total potential for bioenergy productiondepends on the potential for crop production in thecountry. Bioenergy development is a land intensiveactivity and total requests of land in Tanzania are farmore than has been actually allocated. Over 4 millionhectares of land have been requested for biofuelinvestments, in particular for Jatropha, sugar cane andoil palm. But only 100,000 ha have been granted formalrights of occupancy (Sulle & Nelson, 2009b). Therefore,most of the impacts on local land tenure from biofuels2697
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Biofuels in Tanzania: Status, Opportunities and Challenges

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