Global Green Bioenergy Limited (GGBL) is an agricultural based subsidiary of Global Green Development Group (GGDG). The Global Green Bioenergy Limited Jatropha-To-Biofuel program is founded on the premise that smallholder farmers must be organized and empowered because they are the key actors in the pathway of economic growth.
Jatropha-To-Biofuel
GGBL has developed a social impact and economic agricultural development program which produces food, fuel, jobs and profits on an industrial scale, all while remaining eco-friendly. It is a turn-key approach which offers long term income streams for both investors and local/smallholder farmers. This program is in line with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s), one of which is global poverty and hunger reduction through sustainable agricultural development. Agriculture is an employer and partner of all industries. The well planned Global Green Bioenergy Limited Jatropha program intends to build on this new important enlightenment for the continent.
GGBL has developed a social impact and economic agricultural development program which produces food, fuel, jobs and profits on an industrial scale, all while remaining eco-friendly. It is a turn-key approach which offers long term income streams for both investors and local/smallholder farmers. This program is in line with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s), one of which is global poverty and hunger reduction through sustainable agricultural development. Agriculture is an employer and partner of all industries. The well planned Global Green Bioenergy Limited Jatropha program intends to build on this new important enlightenment for the continent.
The project revolves around production of an oil-seed from a plant called Jatropha, a perennial crop with a 50-year lifespan from which can be derived high quality bio-jet fuel and vital by-products such as medicines, cosmetics, fertilizers, to name a few. What is even more important is that the plant permits intercropping of food crops such as beans, cassava, peas, groundnuts and vegetables. Therefore, it does not compete with food production and it also serves as a natural fence helping to reduce crop losses. Because the GGBL program is well researched, it avoids common pitfalls encountered by other Jatropha enterprises ending in “food versus fuel” debate while maintaining profitable and sustainable. Earlier failed Jatropha projects in some countries were due to inadequate R&D for the crop cultivation conditions and lack of pre-determined markets for the produced oil seed and other byproducts. The leading beneficiary of GGBL will be Sub Saharan Africa where poverty remains a widespread problem mainly due to low agricultural productivity.
Intercropping For Food Security
Africa has enormous agricultural potential, not only to feed itself and eliminate hunger and food insecurity, but also to be a major player in global food markets, as well as renewable energy markets. This potential lies in its land, water and oceans, in its men and women, in its knowledge and its own huge markets. Recognizing this opportunity, the African Union chose to make agriculture one of the pillars of the New Partnership for African Development and is implementing this strategy through the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. Interventions that increase productivities in agriculture have the highest chance of attaining prosperity, food security, industrialization, intra-African trade resulting into Africa’s contribution to global trade.
Africa has enormous agricultural potential, not only to feed itself and eliminate hunger and food insecurity, but also to be a major player in global food markets, as well as renewable energy markets. This potential lies in its land, water and oceans, in its men and women, in its knowledge and its own huge markets. Recognizing this opportunity, the African Union chose to make agriculture one of the pillars of the New Partnership for African Development and is implementing this strategy through the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. Interventions that increase productivities in agriculture have the highest chance of attaining prosperity, food security, industrialization, intra-African trade resulting into Africa’s contribution to global trade.
The program addresses the critical need to support farmers by tackling food loss as an important aspect of the Jatropha-To-Biofuel program. The farmers are encouraged to continue to grow their food and other cash crops through an intercropping technique. Rather than compete with food crops for scarce arable land, Jatropha can be intercropped with other plants such as sugar, coconut, vanilla, cassava, groundnuts, neem, moringa and various fruits and vegetables. This gives farmers the opportunity to earn additional income quickly. Intercropping is simultaneously a land- and water-use efficiency technique and a food safety technique, which is layered onto an agroforestry platform.
Agroforestry is characterized by less need for labor-intensive maintenance, less reliance upon irrigation and greater propensity for soil/plant health and sustainable high crop yields. The goal is to deliver agriculture across Africa and developing nations, surrounded by a unique sustainable ecosystem designed for growth in the newly emerging bio-economy (marketplace based on renewable biomass, bioenergy, and sustainable agricultural crops).
Small-scale enterprises provide the engine of growth for a nation. GGBL provides training, tools, equipment, irrigation, fertilizers and seeds to the farmers in the program cooperative to get started. We also link farmers and farmer groups to services and products that will enhance their activities, while also providing a guaranteed off-take agreement to each participating farmer in the cooperative. This ensures the local farmers a guaranteed annual income and no crop waste. Such efforts will preserve the farmland for local farmers, alleviate poverty and help to prevent desertification in Sub-Saharan Africa, while contributing to the national economy.