Biofuels in Kenya: Three reports from TIME, BBC and local media point to instability; jatropha, deforestation crises loom

In Africa, Time Magazine ran an article on failures in the jatropha industry in southeastern Kenya – one of several articles of interest about Africa that have just appeared. The TIME article focuses on poor promotion and information on cultivation from the national government. “Boniface Muoki’s jatropha plants look like they’re doing well,” said TIME. “But Muoki says he did almost nothing the government experts told him to Do — instead, he planted the seedlings in meter-deep holes so that they would collect more rainwater and he tends the plants fastidiously.

Meanwhile, the East African is reporting that the Kenyan government has halted grants of land to outside biofuel investors after reports surfaced that 5,000 rice farmers would be evicted from their lands in order to make room for more than 40 biofuels projects that have been approved. The government said that it would continue the halt until the Cabinet had approved a national biofuels investment policy.

In further news in Kenya, 20,000 local farmers are themselves facing eviction from the Mau forest area after it was discovered that the farmers had cleared as much as 25 percent of the Mau forest reserve for food production. According to a report by the BBC, fewer than 10 percent of the farmers had titles to the lands in question. The Mau forest stores water in the rainy season and releases it to Kenya’s rivers during the dry season, and the deforestation “has triggered a cascade of drought and despair,” according to the Beeb.

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