Konbit Pou Ayiti

Interview with Yves-Andre Wainwright
Former Haitian Minister of the Environment
19 February 2008

Biofuels have been a hot topic in the news this week, especially in the U.S. What is your opinion about the pursuit of biofuels in Haiti?

First of all, there is no such a thing as a technology that would be bad or be good per se. Everything is determined by the balance – for what purpose you use the technology, how you do that and who benefits from its use. We must delineate between the policies of the U.S. administration, which is promoting subsidies for big American companies and is having a negative impact on food security around the world, and efforts to combat poverty in Haiti and other Third World countries.

Second, in Haiti we have the problem of people relying on charcoal or wood for cooking. Small industries like bakeries and dry cleaners are also reliant on large amounts of fuel wood. Clearly, we need alternatives and we need them fast. Imported fossil fuels cannot be the only answer. We need a mix of opportunities for the people.

Plant oil for biofuel is one of the alternatives. There are many positive aspects: we are talking about renewable products that can be collected without cutting down the trees. There are various places, such as denuded soils and degraded environments, where jatropha, cotton and others like benzolive (the moringa tree) can grow. These could be a source of income for poor peasants in the more degraded areas.

Haiti needs to devise a strategy for balancing our need for energy and our need for food. We should put our major efforts into technologies for communities to use self-produced vegetable oil; for example, www.jatropha.de has a cookstove model using jatropha oil. That's the kind of technology we need so that people can be stimulated to produce their own biofuel that is renewable to use in rural communities and small towns in the countryside.

Another use for the plant oil is in the plain outside Gonaives, Jean-Rabel and Anse-Rouge for example, where people rely on pumps for irrigation. It is a major challenge for them to buy diesel to run the pumps, but if the communities could prepare a reserve of biofuel for the beginning of the agricultural season, that could help them a lot. This is not to say that they can be self-sufficient, but a cache could alleviate the pressure on their scarce economy when it is time to begin irrigating their gardens.

What kind of plans is the Government of Haiti pursuing now?

Haiti should be very cautious about promoting biodiesel on a large scale or pretending to be self-sufficient for electricity or cars, because this would have a terrible impact on food production. Unfortunately, the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment and Commerce are all managed by ministers from different political parties and are competing for the funding and to be the leader for biofuel in the country. They are fighting each other while they should be supporting each other.

There will be a pilot project funded by USAID (US Agency for International Development) and the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) in the Montrouis watershed. They will cultivate jatropha and a hotel in the region already has plans to buy the oil in order to earn the label “environmentally-friendly”.

I know of a few groups of investors who have shown an interest in building and operating plants for the production of biodiesel in Haiti. Some are entirely Haitian. Others include or are dominated by foreign capital. All of them are awaiting policies and economic measures from the State, especially, moves showing whether or not the State would consider it worthwhile and feasible to contribute to reduce the energy bill of the country in the mid-term. Also awaited is a signal whether or not the State considers the production of renewable biodiesel as a tool for fighting poverty in countryside. It must be noted that these two objectives are different and may induce strategies that could put the emphasis on distinct sectors of the society. Anyhow, these issues will impact on the cost of the seeds sold by the farmers to the processors and will have to be reflected on the cost of the final product.

The way things are going, I fear we might miss the train or take one going in a wrong direction. I would suggest environmental organizations and donors to promote and support partnerships between universities, local metal workshops and peasant organizations with an aim to devise technologies and processes for the benefit of families and small and micro-enterprises acting in local markets rather than looking for large-scale technologies that are dependent on foreign investors.

Does it take a long time for a jatropha plant to begin producing oil?

Within one and half years you can begin to collect some seeds, and full production occurs at four years. It is possible to mix corn and jatropha in your field. As a matter of fact, jatropha, cotton, moringa or any other plant for the production of oil to be burned ought not be promoted for monoculture. They can help to combats soil erosion and should be seen as a technical compliment to other crops in agroforestry systems.

Is there opposition to biodiesel within Haiti?

There are some who are expressing concern about the impacts on food security, but the key is to find a balance. The Decree on the framework for managing the environment the State adopted during the interim government has made it compulsory to conduct Environmental Impact Assessments for any large scale project of this type. I'm pretty sure, with the kind of public awareness and participation required by that kind of process, we can devise a good win-win situation both for the current population and our grandchildren.  

Quite frankly, the way the U.S. administration is managing this issue is disastrous for us and, given the interconnections in the world economy now, it will be disastrous for them also. But, as I said earlier, we must not amalgamate a technology with the abuses that are being made in an economic system dominated by a few investors and companies that are too focus on short-term financial gains. The solution is not in looking after them but in building our alternative.