Ice-cream, milk, meat and sauce – soya provides it all. Now it’s going to make aeroplanes fly as well. Thanks to the East London-based Sakhisizwe Trust, farmers in the Eastern Cape will soon be planting soya beans for biofuel – and supplementing their diet at the same time.
Ice-cream, milk, meat and sauce – soya provides it all. Now it’s going to make aeroplanes fly as well. Thanks to the East London-based Sakhisizwe Trust, farmers in the Eastern Cape will soon be planting soya beans for biofuel – and supplementing their diet at the same time.
German technology providers have teamed with Eastern Cape entrepreneur, Sakhisizwe Trust, to bring a soya bean biofuel project to South Africa. And they already have their first customer lined up: German airline, Lufthansa, has committed to buying fuel from them.
This project will be based in the Eastern Cape, Free State and Kwa-Zulu Natal. Both commercial and small scale farmers will be involved and will employ hundreds of workers.
Ed Richardson, spokesperson of Sakhisizwe Trust, said biofuel crops tend to attract infrastructural and other investment to the areas where they are grown.
Since most of the new jobs growing soya beans will be created in the rural areas, the parts of the Eastern Cape where unemployment is highest are likely to benefit.
Apart from economical benefits there are other advantages. Biofuel expert Dr Garth Cambray says this project will enhance food security and will only involve land that is not already used for other crops.
“For every ton of vegetable oil, four tons of soy cake are produced.”
Cambray explained that soy cake (the solid material left over once the oil has been extracted from the soya bean) is high in protein and will be a good food source for people in rural areas.
He also said the project will allow subsistence farmers to earn extra income by renting out some of their field which could ensure more efficient usage of the land.
Under the project the farms will be managed “so there will be more efficiency and the ability to create jobs”, added Cambray.
According to local farmer Paul Collett soya beans are profitable and provide “excellent soil conditioning for follow-on crops”. Although the cost of producing biofuel is higher than that of fossil fuels, the impact on the environment is reduced, and Cambray said the production of biofuel is “reasonably environmentally-friendly”.
Richardson said that projects of "this magnitude, scope and vision" often face hurdles such as financial support and finding the right people with the right skills to commit to the project.
He does, however, believe that all the necessary building blocks are in place, and those at the Sakhisizwe Trust believe that they have the necessary support to make it happen. The first soya beans will be planted within the next month.
