African call for agrofuel moratorium.

African organisations from many countries call for an urgent moratorium and invite all organisations to sign to help protect Africans' food security, forests, water, land rights, farmers and indigenous people from agrofuel developments which are increasingly devouring their land and water resources. To address climate change and reduce energy use, local, ecological agricultural methods are needed.

NOVEMBER 2007, AFRICAN BIODIVERSITY NETWORK -- We, the undersigned members of African civil society organisations, and organisations from other parts of the world, urgently call for a moratorium on new agrofuel developments on our continent. We need to protect our food security, forests, water, land rights, farmers and indigenous peoples from the aggressive march of agrofuel developments, which are devouring our land and resources at an unbelievable scale and speed. We call for:

* A moratorium on new agrofuel developments in Africa. Our governments urgently need to stop and think before delivering our continent to the fuel demand of foreign investors.

* No agrofuel targets for Governments in Europe and the rest of the world.

* An international moratorium on agrofuel exports, until the true social and environmental costs can be assessed, and disaster averted.

We have chosen to name this problem 'agrofuels' instead of the more common term 'biofuels' to make it clear we are talking about large-scale growing of crops specifically to produce liquid fuels. We are not talking about use of wood, dung or waste matter. Nor are we talking about small-scale production integrated into food production and used for household and local energy supplies. We wish to make clear that the agrofuels push is about large-scale fuel production on massive privatised plantations, driven by export market fuel demands.

Africa is already feeling the impact of climate change, and our continent is likely to be the hardest hit by future changes in our weather systems. We must do all we can to both mitigate the problems and adapt to the coming changes. The agrofuels push, rather than the seductive 'carbon neutral' solution its claims to be, will exacerbate Africa's climate and food security problems even more.

The agrofuels push in Africa is being termed the next 'green gold rush investors are rushing to privatise our land for their plantations, while our governments willingly allocate millions of hectares from the 70% of Africa's land that is still communally owned. 'Jatropha' is being pushed as one of the new miracle crops for African small farmers to produce fuel. But the reality is the gold rush is firmly controlled by giant transnational companies which are taking over Africa's land at an incredible pace, and bringing about disastrous socio-economic and environmental impacts on our communities, food security, forests and water resources. Some impacts already observed in 2007 include:

Tanzania: Evicted farmers/food security

Thousands of Tanzanian farmers growing rice and maize are already being evicted from fertile areas of land with good access to water for agrofuel sugar cane and jatropha plantations on newly privatised land. Villages are being cleared, but families have been given minimal compensation or opportunities for their loss of land, community and way of life. Evictions already taken place in Kisarawe District and the Usangu plains, and tens of thousands of hectares in Bagamoyo and Kilwa districts are being given to foreign investors. The government has also identified millions more hectares in at least lo other districts.

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Uganda: Deforestation for agrofuels

In Uganda, plans to cut down thousands of hectares of the country's largest rainforest reserve, for a sugar plantation for ethanol have fortunately been cancelled, following civil protest on the issue. Such deforestation can threaten local water cycles, as Mabira Forest is a key water catchment area for Lake Victoria and the River Nile. Unfortunately, thousands of hectares of forest on Kalangala and Bugala Islands in Lake Victoria have already been cut down to make way for palm oil plantations.

Ethiopia: Conservation areas

Millions of hectares in Ethiopia have been identified as suitable for agrofuel production, and many foreign companies have already been allocated land from farmland, forests and wilderness areas. Even protected areas are not safe from the spread of agrofuels. One European investor has been granted 13,000 hectares of land in Oromia state, 87% of which is the Babile Elephant Sanctuary, a home to rare and endangered elephants.

Zambia: Out-growers bad deal

Privatised plantations are not the only model of large-scale agrofuel production in Africa. Some investors in Zambia are choosing to grow crops like jatropha using huge numbers of out-growers, with contracts lasting up to 30 years. The contracts transfer production control from the farmer to the company, through a system of loans, numerous extra charges and service payments, and prices determined by the company. Under such a system of dependence, farmers are likely to increase their indebtedness to the company, and they may be obliged to hand over their land altogether.

West Africa: Fuel or food?

In West Africa, the agrofuel craze is gaining momentum. Jatropha is already being grown in Togo, Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire and Niger. Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade has enthused about an African 'biofuels revolution and placed fuel crops at the heart of an agriculture renewal programme in his country. In Ghana one company is planning to plant one million hectares of jatropha with government support, while in Benin a company has permission to plant a quarter of a million hectares of agrofuel crops. Farmers in Benin and in many other countries in the region have, on average, no more than one hectare to grow their products and agrofuels are expected to make a serious dent in their food production.

The agrofuels 'revolution is geared to replace millions of hectares of African local agricultural systems and the rural communities working in them, with large plantations, substituting biodiversity-based indigenous cropping, grazing and pasture farming systems with monocultures and genetically engineered agrofuel crops. Millions of hectares of what agrofuel-pushers euphemistically call 'wastelands' or 'marginal soils' are also to be turned to 'productive' fuel production, conveniently forgetting the millions of people in local communities making a living from these fragile ecosystems. And where there are no indigenous farming systems to replace, one just takes the forests. In the driver's seat are multinational corporations which manage these huge monocultures best and control the international agrofuels market.

In Africa, much of the drive for agrofuel developments comes from the idea of achieving national energy security. There is a failure to recognise that foreign companies control the direction of biofuel production, with an eye to targeting the more lucrative export markets. Rising global oil prices will determine the price of liquid biofuels, and it's likely to price fuel and feedstock out of the reach of the poor, and into Northern export markets. We simply do not believe agrofuels offer a genuine solution for climate change or energy security. Scientific studies show the production, processing and transport of agrofuels, uses more energy than is contained in the fuel product Other studies show, cutting-down and burning forests and peatlands to make way for agrofuel plantations, produces many times more carbon dioxide emissions per litre of agrofuel than the equivalent amount of fossil fuel. The current agrofuels push exacerbates, rather than solves climate change.

Africa and climate change

To address climate change, we dolt need agrofuel plantations to produce fuel energy. We need instead to turn the industrial production system upside down. We need policies and strategies to reduce energy consumption and prevent waste. Such policies and strategies already exist and are being fought for. In agriculture and food production, they mean:

* orienting production towards local rather than international markets;

* adopting strategies to keep people on the land, rather than throwing them off;

* supporting sustained and sustainable approaches for bringing biodiversity back into agriculture, using and expanding on local knowledge;

* putting local communities back in the driving seat of rural development.

Such policies and strategies imply the use and further development of agro-ecological technologies to maintain and improve soil fertility and organic matter and in the process to sequester carbon dioxide in the soil rather than expelling it into the atmosphere. Such measures would amount to a formidable step in the right direction in the fight against climate change. Among Africa's many challenges, food security is one of the most serious. A full car tank of ethanol uses the same amount of grain that can feed a child for a year. We do not understand how our governments can willingly take our food, land and water to meet the fuel luxuries of the wealthy in the North, when we already face problems of food security and environmental destruction at home.

We can ill afford to lose our food, forests, land and water, if we are to meet the challenges of climate change and food insecurity. We therefore ask our African governments and those of the North to stop and think We urgently call for a moratorium to protect Africa from the many threats of the new and dangerous agrofuels stampede.

To sign the moratorium, send your name, organisation and country to: [e-mail]

* This moratorium statement is available via the African Biodiversity Network.

SIGNED IN AFRICA BY

1. Mahinou Senade Nestor, Synergie Paysanne, Benin

2. Desalegn Tanga, Wolyta Soddo Pensioners

3. Elbethel Tadesse, ABN Seed GETCo, Ethiopia

4. Gebremehdin Birega, Africa Biodiversity Network, Ethiopia

5. Melaku Werede, Scientific Advisor, Ethiopia

6. Million Belay, MBLCA, Ethiopia

7. Sue Edwards, ISD, Ethiopia

8. Tadesse Reta, Ejera Indigenous Seed Conservatory Association, Ethiopia

9. Dr Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, Environmental Protection Agency, Ethiopia

10. Tsion Yohannes, MELCA, Ethiopia

11. Bakari Nyari, RAINS, Ghana

12. Gilbert Iddi Seidu, University for Development Studies, Ghana

13. Naa Thomas Tia Sulemana, RAINS, Ghana

14. Salifu Yussif Abudulai, RAINS, Ghana

15. Alice Mashinde, Appropriate Rural Development Agriculture Programme, Kenya

16. Basilius Kagwi Ndirangu, Porini, Kenya

17. Collins Ochieng Otieno, CREP Programme, Kenya

18. Gathuru Mburu, Africa Biodiversity Network, Kenya

19. Jackson Wafula, SMART Initiative, Kenya

20. Paul Karanja, SACDEP, Kenya

21. Regina Mutheca, SACDEP, Kenya

22. Zachary Makanya, PELUM, Kenya

23. Lamine Biaye, ASPSP, Senegal

24. Elfrieda Pschorn-Strauss, GRAIN, South Africa

25. Jabulani Bonginkosi Tembe, Kwa-Nganase Farmer Organisation, South Africa

26. Katja Abbott, ABN, South Africa

27. Lawrence Mkhaliphe, Biowatch, South Africa

28. Mphatheleni Makaulule, Mupo Foundation, South Africa

29. Abdallah Ramadhani Mkindi, Envirocare, Tanzania

30. Chacha Benedict Wambura, Foundation Help, Tanzania

31. Peter Kidimba, Ileje Rural Development Organisation, Tanzania

32. Renatha Abel Kimathi, NGAS, NI, Tanzania

33. Agnes Kirabo, VEDCO, Uganda

34. Geoffrey Kayama, Harvest Help, Zambia

SIGNED FROM OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD BY

35. Vanubia Martins, ASA, Brazil

36. Vijay Singh Negi, Beej Bachad Andolan, India

37. Alex Thanthriarachi, Protection of Indigenous Seeds, Sri Lanka

38. Henk Hobbelink, GRAIN, Spain

30. Kay Weir, The Pacific Institute of Resource Management, New Zealand.