‘Biofuels industry needs co-ops’

For the biofuels industry to succeed, emerging farmers need to be organised into cooperatives so that they can jointly deliver to biofuels plants, negotiate good input prices, have access to credit for inputs, training, materials and jointly own the processing facilities. This was the message from National African Farmers’ Union president Motsepe Matlala at a recent conference in Johannesburg.
Issue Date 16 March 2007

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For the biofuels industry to succeed, emerging farmers need to be organised into cooperatives so that they can jointly deliver to biofuels plants, negotiate good input prices, have access to credit for inputs, training, materials and jointly own the processing facilities. This was the message from National African Farmers’ Union president Motsepe Matlala at a recent conference in Johannesburg.

M atlala said major biofuels companies need to partner small, under-resourced farmers by providing equity and technology for quality product development. “The farmers can have shares that are related to the produce they deliver. By decentralising plants, quality training can also be made available close to them,” he said. large number of good developing farmers farm on small farms, so they don’t always have the means to buy their own machinery.

Matlala said providing greater access to machinery would enable these farmers to realise bigger harvests and increase the profitability and sustainability of their enterprises. In an effort to ensure farmers are fully equipped for biofuels crop production, the Limpopo agriculture department and the Agricultural Research Council jointly introduced a training programme aimed at helping small-scale farmers become commercially viable by providing training and mentoring. T he project, called the Mapfura-Makhura Incubator, will equip farmers to exploit business opportunities in the biofuels industry.

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Ndwakhulu Mukhufhi, CEO of the Mapfura-Makhura Incubator, said they are looking to develop a 260t demonstration biodiesel plant that will see 1ha producing 1,5t of soya or sunflower that will then be processed into 0,48t of biodiesel. – Fidelis Zvomuya