TANZANIA HAS PIONEER AND INVENTED THE WORLD’S FIRST SISAL FIBRE BASED ELECTRICITY POWER PLANT.

By Leo Odera Omolo

The world’s first sisal fibre electricity plant has started operation in Tanzania two years after the completion of a feasibility study on the use of sisal waste.

Katani Limited, the company that has pioneered and explored this exciting, but the latest new era of technology of electrical generation using the sisal Waste, is reported to be in the process of negotiating with the state energy provider firm, TANESCO to have the power it produces connected to the national grid.

KataniLtd manager Frank Maro said his firm intend to produce 600 kilowatts of power a day.

He said the sisal fired electricity plant would go commercial as soon as more equipment is procured and installed in all its five sisal farms.

“We are still negotiating with Tanesco to take up the electricity from the plant,” he added.

The USD.1.5 million project is being financed by the Common Fund for Commodities {CFC},United Nations Industrial Development Organizations {UNIDO} and the Tanzanian government.

Katani Ltd initial strategy is to process 100 tones of sisal biomas per day and be able to produce 10 Megawatts of electricity within the next ten years.

Nine other plants will be established at the other nine sisal factories owned by the company at Hale, Magunga,Mwelya and Ngombezi estates – all based in the Tanga region.

The company’s Managing Director Salum Shamte was last week quoted by the EASTAFRICA WEEKLY, as saying that the milling plant for chopped fibre production has been fabricated by TANZANIA Automotive Technology Centre.

The hale project is part of the efforts to find alternative application of suisal to counter the present slump in sisal fibre sales after the introduction of synthetic fibres in the international markets”

He said a fibre extraction plant has been established at Hale and there are plans to establish another one at the nearby Magunga estate.

Tanzania, according to a source in Dar, has registered considerable success in testing the use of sisal waste in generating electricity. The ongoing pilot project managed by UNID and called “Cleaner Waste for Biogas and Biofertilisers,” shows that sisa resdue is efficient in biogas production.

ENDS
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

ADB TO OFFER TECHNICAL SUPPORT TO COMESA TO ENHANCE DAIRY INDUSTRY AND SANITATION.

By Leo Odera Omolo

The African Development Bank will offer technical support to the Common Market for East and Southern Africa {Comesa} member countries to harmonise sanitary measures, as well as product quality standards.

“This is with the a view to introducing a Comesa Green Pass for movement of agricultural produce across the region,”said the Comesa’s new Secretary General Sindiso Ngwenya.

The Comesa chief said this when he addressed the press at the fourth African Dairy Conference held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

“A well functioning regional market requires that the region develops harmonized sanitary measures and standards if we are to compete globally, ”the Comesa chief said.

With the assistance of the European Union and USAID|, Mr. Ngwenya said Comesa is working on developing, product quality standards and grades across the region.

For now, nearly 300 regional harmonized standards have been develop, about 100 are for agricultural products..

Industrial associations like ESA-DA have been identified to play the role of monitoring to ensure compliance.

The conference also announced that the African Union and NEPAD. Working with regional economic communities such as Comesa and East African Community{EAC} have already adopted the comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme as a continent framework for accelerating the development of agriculture.

The programme is expected to address issues of food and nutrition and the distribution of dairy products in school feeding programme, which oversee free distribution of milk products.

At the same time, it was reliably learnt that the Comesa plans to introduce an intra-Comesa market, a strategy that will capture a wider market for the expanding dairy industry,

Ngwenya said to achieve this goal, stakeholders have to work hard towards harmonization of dairy standards.

“Last year, the contribution of dairy to the region’s agriculture GDP stood at Kshs.5.2 billion. The sector’s contribution to people livelihood in terms of nutrition and income generation cannot be over looked, ”said the Comesa boss.

ENDS
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

– – –
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 07:15:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Leo Odera Omolo
Subject: SISAL FIBRE ELECTRIC POWER; ADB’s DAIRY INDUSTRY & SANITATION TECHNICAL SUPPORT