To support its energy transition, Africa is betting on biomass, among other things. And after the cocoa
or coffee is the cotton that could soon reveal its full potential. About thirty
African professionals in the sector recently traveled to India, where recovery solutions
already exist.
Could waste from the cotton industry be transformed into green energy? The idea seems
in any case to interest the African producers to the highest degree. Around thirty of them, from
Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, recently traveled to India to study supply chains
biomass recovery. They were welcomed there by the team of the Central Cotton Research Institute
(ICRC), located in Nagpur, in the center of the country. The trip was organized by the Conference of
United Nations on Trade and Development (Unctad), which also supports the programs
electrification of Africa. In India, the African delegation was able to see the progress made by the ICRC.
Instead of being burnt - a process without recovery, which suddenly releases a very large quantity of
fumes-, the residues are transformed into pellets or briquettes. In the country, 500 brick kilns have already
born. The government has even announced that it wants to double the country's capacities in the
biomass, to reach 10GW installed by 2022. An ambition that cotton stalks, leaves and seeds ,
once considered waste, will contribute to achieving. Especially since at the start of the chain, at
three tons of waste per cultivated hectare, and with a purchase price of ten dollars per ton (according to
figures from an Unctad study), the potential profits are far from negligible for
cotton producers . For Zambia alone, they are estimated at three million dollars a year. Read also:
Morocco will invest in biomass Diversify income This new source of income could
good for the entire African cotton sector, which accounts for nearly 10% of world production. During
the 2018/2019 campaign, it is Benin which has established itself as the leading producer of African cotton (700
000 t), followed by Mali (660,000 t), Côte d'Ivoire (460,000 t), and Burkina Faso, which ends at the foot of the
podium (440,000 tons). But if it is renowned for its quality, cotton "made in Africa" is currently
very proven by the competition. “ African cotton has the great advantage of being harvested by hand, which
better preserves the characteristics of the fibre", recently explained Gérald Estur, cotton specialist ,
on the occasion of the 77th Plenary Meeting of the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC). “In Africa, the
cotton sector is not fortunate enough to benefit from the extremely significant support that it can
grant other countries, in particular the main producers, China and the United States”. In
Clearly, African producers must, most of the time, manage without any subsidy, which
penalizes them on the world market. By recovering their residues, they could thus significantly diversify and
improve their income. Especially since another sector is also being explored, that of the production of
fuel from cottonseed oil . Considered a co-product of the fiber (which represents 85% of the
market value of cotton ), the seeds have long been used to make edible oil.
But it is also possible to distil this oil to make bioethanol. This technology
promising crop is currently hampered by the relatively limited quantities of seeds available for a
large-scale production. >>> Go further: What energy mix for Africa in 2050?