UN-FAO BioEnergy and Food Security Report for Tanzania

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently released its Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) Analysis for Tanzania. The BEFS analysis is a project of the UN-FAO which aims to provide policy makers who may be exploring opportunities for bioenergy development, "the tools they need to make informed decisions that take into account food security issues and in the broader context rural and agricultural development". There are five components in the BEFS analytical framework: (a) biomass potential; (b) biofuel supply chain production costs; (c) agriculture markets; (d) economy wide impacts; and (e) household level food security. For the Tanzania report, the feedstocks of focus were cassava, sugar cane, palm oil, jatropha, sweet sorghum and sunflower for bioenergy analyses; rice and cassava were taken for food security analysis. Some findings of the report are: (1) cassava-based ethanol schemes, linked to outgrowers, would be a viable option for biofuel development and may lead to economic growth and poverty reduction, (2) ethanol from sugarcane is a competitive option in Tanzania but requires a large-scale industrial set up, (3) molasses may be an unstable source of feedstock in the case of Tanzania, (4) based on land suitability assessment, sweet sorghum may present a possible alternative to sugarcane because of its lower water requirements but this is a new crop that would need investigation, (5) for biodiesel feedstocks, sunflower has high potential, based on land suitability assessment; jatropha presents a number of risks since it is still in quite an experimental stage and the results should be treated with caution. The full report can be accessed at the UN-FAO website (URL above).

Related Information Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) Project http://www.fao.org/bioenergy/foodsecurity/befs/en/