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

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
2 3
developing countries . In Africa over 90 % of the wood taken from forests is woodfuel ; 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
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household energy in many African cities . 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
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needs for many decades to come . 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
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from shifting one’s mindset to serve local markets.

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
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countries? 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
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leap to mobile phone technology but also registers more than 300 million phone subscribers . 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
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can be broken down into a series of simple menu choices .
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
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on the network. It is worth noting that all GSM phones have USSD capability .
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
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bicycles could be furthermore adapted to carry extra load such as the examples of Cycle for Health .

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
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bicycle fulfilling other services; acting for example as mobile calls mobile stations 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
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mobile expenditure . 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
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16 millions hectares in the 1960s, the most optimistic estimations give 2.5 millions of hectares today .
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
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km from the hinterland.

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
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2000 to 50.000 hectares today 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
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value to produce charcoal . 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
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coppiced to produce charcoal . 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
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Faso . 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
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households are concerned . 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
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and providing direct and indirect income to over 6,000,000 people . Millions of cocoa pods are left lying
on the ground (that minimally enriches the soil) but could be turned into combined heat, power and
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char.

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
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sort of agro waste 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