For this blog post I’d like to profile an amazing for-profit social organization, Eco-Fuel Africa (EFA), that is doing a lot of good in Uganda in regards to deforestation and poverty due to inadequate farming practices. In rural Uganda, according to Eco-Fuel’s website, 8 out of 10 people do not have access to clean cooking fuel and therefore use firewood for cooking and heating. This dependence on wood severely depletes the forests of Africa. Furthermore, gathering firewood is generally a female task; girls often miss school in order to complete it. As the founder of Eco-Fuel Africa recounts, when he visited his family from Kampala in 2009, he saw his sister walking ten kilometres to gather wood ; she had missed yet another day of school in order to do this necessary task. This prompted him to think of a solution to the dependence on firewood.
Eco-Fuel Africa’s solution is the production and sale of green charcoal, a renewable and carbon-neutral cooking fuel. It is not smoky, it burns longer than firewood, and it costs 20% less than buying firewood. To produce green charcoal, EFA needs a product called char, which is made out of biomass waste in locally made kilns. They realized there was a way to benefit the region’s farmers in the process of acquiring char and set up a five day training process for marginalized farmers which ends with the farmer taking home a kiln. Using locally sourced waste from their community, char is produced and sold back to EFA. The farmer sells approximately 80% of his or her char, effectively doubling their monthly income. The remaining 20% is mixed with local organic nutrients (a process shown to the farmers during their training) to create biochar; a highly efficient fertilizer. The use of biochar in farmers’ gardens has increased agricultural productivity on average by 50%.