In sub-Saharan African countries, biomass energy like wood, dung etc. accounts for on average 75% of the total energy consumption in the region. There is a wide variation from country to country: 48% in Zimbabwe, 66% in Zambia, 86% in Kenya, 90% in Tanzania and 94% in Mozambique. This imbalance in the energy ladder resulted in 95% of firewood being consumed in rural areas when compared to only 5% in urban areas.
The unequal distribution of fuel use is directly related to the income levels of urban populations compared to rural populations. Sub-Saharan Africa is the least urbanized region in the world with about 75% of its population living in rural areas and the majority of its population exists on US$1 per day.
Firewood and charcoal are important source of income for rural women. In rural Africa, women are traditionally in charge of looking for firewood in the forest to meet the household needs. When wood and charcoal has become a business, it is still in hands of women and this wood collection activity is a very important source of income for a large part of the year.
In the areas near to main roads and in the surroundings of urban areas, deforestation has become a big problem due to this wood business. The linkage between reduced forest cover, erosion and desertification is not well understood by the population and the planting of new trees is not taking place. Initiatives, like Wangari Maathai's http://www.greenbeltmovement.org have started to turn the tide.
However, the problem is difficult to deal with because people don't have any other source of income to substitute the income gained from wood selling and they don't have skills or capital for starting something new.
Creating a new, sustainable rural industry
Rural vegetable oil production provides the initial foundations on which an entirely new, local, micro and environmentally friendly industry which can then be encouraged to develop all over rural Africa.
On a national level, vegetable oil can enable developing countries to replace imported fuels radically changing their balance of payments picture. Rural vegetable oil production sends oil wealth back into the countryside replacing the need for impoverished African countries to send what little hard currency they have, overseas importing petroleum based fuels.
Redeployment of rural workers
The dependence on biomass energy in rural areas has led to women spending long hours gathering wood and dung everyday. This same time and effort could be spent on productive activities like harvesting vegetable oil seeds or working for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which are well documented poverty alleviating enterprises.
Redeployment of women from wood gathering activities, to more productive activities would help improve the standard of living of all the constituents of a rural community and start to break the crushing cycle of rural poverty.
Stem the tide of rural to urban migration
In the vegetable oil uplift system, an un-skilled oil seed picker can earn US $750 per year, tripling the average African rural wage. This level of income also places them ahead of the yearly average income level of the average African urban household of US$ 650, so relieving the pressure for the rural poor to migrate to the urban areas to survive.
National Implications
Vegetable oil used as a diesel fuel replacement has the potential to transform the prospects for many poor, unskilled rural Africans. For example, in Zimbabwe, 130,000 unskilled people could hand pick enough oil seeds to replace the entire nation’s 2 million liter daily demand for diesel fuel. 900,000 acres of vegetable oil plantation or 0.5% of Zimbabwe’s 390,580 sq km of total land area would produce this much vegetable oil.
The envisioned vegetable oil industry will increase rural incomes, which could help stem the tide of people migrating out of rural areas and stabilize the population growth in cities. Increased rural employment should also reduce the number of migrant workers traveling from rural to urban areas to seek employment which is partly responsible for the rapid spread of the AIDS epidemic.
