Biofuels to power Eastern Cape?

Hum. Reading a gushing piece about how bio-fuels were going to bring peace light and prosperity to the Eastern Cape, I was reminded of the infamous groundnut scheme that soaked up thousands of pounds of British taxpayers' money in the then Tanganyika, just after the end of the Second World War.

Briefly: It was typical back-of-the-cigarette-box bit of economics. Britain at the time still had an empire. Tanganyika was part of it and lots of land was available to the imperial power which had just fought the war and damn near starved to death to win it. Then some bright spark in the British civil service thought," why not grow peanuts, and make peanut butter to feed the British masses? Plenty of space in Tanganyika, plenty of bulldozers left over from the war. The idea went up the line to the newly elected Labour Government and immediately got the nod. Off they went. Thousands of acres were ploughed up and planted. The socialist planners sat back to await the harvest bonanza. Then, oops, our clever Pom knew nothing of drought. Africa struck back and the crop was ruined. No doubt the civil servant was promoted. Now back to the Eastern Cape. Read on and weep. "South Africa is moving to establish a bio-fuels industry that could create thousands of jobs and draw billions of rands in investment in the Eastern Cape, a part of the country that is rich in under-used, high-potential arable land. Felix Hobson, senior manager of the Eastern Cape government's agriculture resource planning and management division, said this week that the government had set aside R9.5-million for fencing land and planting canola and R8-million for planting sugar beet in the N2 Mbhashe local municipality to kick-start the project. Developing a bio fuels industry is part of a new agrarian transformation plan for the province and one of the Eastern Cape's priority projects under the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgi-SA), a government strategy to boost economic growth and reduce unemployment in the country. "The bio fuel project is envisaged to be a major Asgi-SA project in the Eastern Cape," Hobson said, adding that it would create "a huge market for agricultural products including canola, Soya beans and sunflower which was not there before." This would be achieved through establishing 500 000 hectares of currently under-used land for integrated rotational cropping within the next five years, Hobson said. The crops would be used to feed a planned 200 000 ton-per-annum bio diesel plant in the East London Industrial Development Zone, as well as other biofuel and agro-processing initiatives. European investors have reportedly expressed interested in developing the East London plant. "This intervention will require an investment by government of R1.5-billion that will secure a simultaneous R3.82-billion foreign direct investment and a R7-billion investment from local financial institutions," Hobson said. According to Hobson, the initiative would create around 23 000 new jobs and a sustainable R2.9-billion a year in agricultural production and processing in the province". I suggest the following words to be eaten at a later date: Billions of rands in investment in the Eastern Cape, A new agrarian transformation plan for the province, A planned 200 000 ton per annum diesel plant, European investors have reportedly expressed interest, A R7 billion investment from local financial institutions. (See Dancing down the yellow brick road)