11 Feb 2010
Ethanol gel fuel project at Akawli (Akorley)

In the quest to provide sustainable market for sugarcane farmers in Ghana CEESD has chosen Akorley a village about 8 km from Somanya the district capital of Yilo Krobo District as the place to set an ethanol processing plant as a way of providing sustainable livelihood for the inhabitants of Akorley and surrounding villages and fighting climate change. The choice of site is driven by the fact that inhabitants of Akorley used to cultivate sugarcane on large scales to feed the then sugar factory at Asutuare about 20 km from Somanya. The collapse of the sugar factory led to the people of Akorley losing their livelihood since there was no more ready market for their farm produce. As shown in Figure 1 there seems to be no plans to revive the sugar factory as the building which used to house the factory has been converted to a secondary school. Though some sugarcane farming activities are still going on a rather small scale, the people have been adversely affected by the closure of the factory. The desire to revive the cultivation of sugarcane is very strong given ready market for the produce.

A working visit was paid by officials of CEESD to Akorley to meet with stakeholders and farmers to measure their acceptance of the project idea. During the visit we met the District Chief Executive (DCE), Hon. Andews Sodah, of the Yilo Krobo district to the discus the idea of siting an ethanol plant in the village. The Member of Parliament (MP) of the constituency was around during the CEESD meeting with the DCE. The Ethanol project was discussed thoroughly and the DCE and the MP expressed interest and agreed to the implementation of the project. However, they needed to be assured that there will ready market for the sugarcane farmers after cultivation and other benefits the project will bring to the village. It was agreed at the meeting that a consultative meeting between interested parties will be held to determine producer price and the role the assembly would play in facilitating the project. A memorandum of understanding is expected to be signed soon between CEESD, District Assembly and other stakeholders.

During our visit to Akoley it came to light that a number of the inhabitants in the Akorley village were into the production of ethanol using the sugarcane grown in the area.  The ethanol distilled was sold to local pubs. The ethanol distillation process is therefore not new to the village except to say that as shown in the pictures very crude and inefficient methods were employed.

The farmers in the village expressed their readiness to embrace the idea of setting up an ethanol plant and indicated their preparedness to expand the existing sugarcane farms. At Akorley we met the Chief of the village and other farmers who were very excited and they expressed their interest in expanding their sugarcane farms and taking part in the project.