On July 8th, 2010, Charles, Avi and I visited the KeFRI station in Kibwezi. We had met the supervisor, Edward, at a bar a few weeks earlier (our preferred method of meeting local high ranking government employees) and he had cordially invited us to visit his station and check out the work they do. Now, I had visited the site years before, during the initial water project assessment with Scott Snelling, because it is also the location of Kibwezi's water treatment system. I'd always wanted to get a tour of the facilities and see what sorts of forestry projects they were up to. It took a couple weeks, but we finally managed to find some time to visit.
We arrived in the morning and were welcomed by Edward. He took us over to the director's office (Mwendwa). There we discussed the many activities of KeFRI, their extension research in the area, focusing particularly on two plants, Jatropha and Mukua (Melia volkensii).
Jatropha is the wonder plant we've all heard of before. Its a bush that produces seeds that while inedible, contain high oil content, and are thus considered high potential for biodiesel. In fact, our friends over at EWB-Columbia have been working on a project utilizing Jatropha to fuel a multi-function engine in Uganda for some years now. But I digress. The advantages are obvious, and KeFRI has been trying to convince farmers to grow Jatropha in the area. One problem, there is no means of extracting the oil from the Jatropha and no where to process the oil into fuel, so no one is buying the Jatropha seeds. Maybe if someone knew of someone else who had experience developing multi-function engines that can process the jatropha seeds and convert the seeds into oil and the engine also runs on that oil, and maybe if they had experience working in East Africa...
Anyway, the second plant they were trying to introduce locally is the Mukau tree or Melia volkensii. It is a fast growing hardwood (10 yr to maturity) that is pretty drought and termite resistant. KeFRI staff train local farmers to grow it, as there is a pretty intensive process for cracking and preparing the seed to turn it into a seedling. The claim is that the Mukau will sell for a lot of money and is a good long term investment. Local reaction when we discussed Mukau later on was mixed, many complaining that you can't build with it (not a softwood) and others saying that it is great for furniture and very common.
In all it was a pretty interesting day. We learned a bit about a government extension program in the area and got some free seeds to take with us. We brought the seeds over to the primary school and Charles put a couple in a pot to see if he could get them to grow. Are Mukau or Jatropha right for the area, and could either be a future source of income generation? I think there are a lot of hurdles for either, the Jatropha needs the equipment and the Mukau is too long of an investment for most local farmers, but I'm glad to know that KeFRI is there doing research, as both offer potential, as long as the right capital investment is made...You can find more pictures from the day here.
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