26 . CIRAD 2008
Biofuels in Burkina Faso— a multidisciplinary approach
Burkina Faso depends on hydrocarbon fuel imports for transportation, as well as for motive and electric power generation. This country now intends to introduce an energy policy to achieve energy independence and improve its fuel-consumption sustainability. It is thus interested in the potential of biofuels. Fuel bills could be reduced by adopting biofuels to replace petroleum products, while also developing income-generating subsectors in rural areas. CIRAD coordinated a large-scale multidisciplinary study on possibilities for development of this sector.
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n Burkina Faso, hydrocarbon fuel consumption is low but still weighs heavily on the country’s trade balance. The government therefore intends to implement a sustainable fuel use strategy, while also seeking to achieve energy independence, especially through the use of biofuels. Drawing up such a policy is complicated. A CIRAD team, in collaboration with Burkinabe researchers, thus carried out an economic, agronomic and technical study on the biofuel development potential for the purposes of policy-making support.
Technical and agricultural potential of biofuels
imported hydrocarbon fuels could be replaced by biofuels in two activity sectors: electricity generation and dieseland petrol-fueled light and heavy vehicle haulage. The findings also indicated that the biofuel development strategy should enhance fuel access in fuel-deprived rural areas, thus promoting the emergence of new activities.
An assessment of the technical potential of biofuels highlighted the advantages of using raw vegetable oils produced from oilseed plants—the techniques are simple and accessible for small village- and large industrial-scale users. However, it also pointed out the production problems that are currently being encountered in producing biodiesel fuel, since the industrial ethanol esterification process has yet to be perfectly controlled. It also stressed issues with bio-ethanol fuel production, which is a highly energy-consuming process with many drawbacks, including high crop water supply needs, competition for land, export risks, the need to standardize products and organize the subsector.
Biofuels and economic development
A dynamic analysis of the country’s fuel consumption patterns revealed that
© E. Hanff/CIRAD
This study focused on the potential of biofuels as an economic development factor, in terms of employment, rural activities, revenue savings and desertification control. It also identified several types of risk, especially social and ecological, associated with different potential options, while focusing especially on possible competition between food and energy production. Sweet sorghum, a crop with a combined food and fuel production potential
Several plants have been assessed for their agricultural potential, but also for the associated risks: physic nut, cotton, sunflower, groundnut, soybean, sorghum (stems) and sugar-cane. The study findings toned down the physic nut advantages that are often showcased: few agricultural data are available, its cultivation immobilizes fields for several years before harvest, and its oilseed cake