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A. LE FLOCH
Mozambican Agriculture Minister Soares Nhaca has insisted that the government will only approve biofuels projects if they do not conflict with food production.
Speaking at a seminar on biofuels in the central city of Beira on Friday, Nhaca stressed that biofuels could be a viable alternative to imported petroleum-based fuels.
Cited by the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique", Nhaca said the great challenge facing the government, and Mozambican society as a whole, was to identify solutions to the current constraints imposed by high international oil prices. Mozambicans, he urged, should always seek "to transform adversities into opportunities".
The government was thus committed to carrying out viability studies for the production of biofuels from a variety of plants, but had no intention of sacrificing food security.
"Any project to produce biofuels that may be approved in Mozambique will always be on the condition that it does not prejudice food production", stressed Nhaca. Furthermore key food crops such as maize, although they can be turned into biofuels easily enough, are not eligible for Mozambican biofuels projects.
"In Mozambique, biofuels cannot be produced on the basis of foodstuffs", declared Nhaca.
In its biofuels strategy the government has stressed cultivating the shrub jatropha. Using jatropha seeds to produce diesel in no way compromises food security, since jatropha is grown on marginal land, and is inedible.
The two major biofuels investment projects approved so far, in Manica and Gaza provinces, will use sugar cane to produce ethanol.