Biostar: the BioWooEB Research Unit is committed to an innovative project to develop, access to the energy of rural agro-food industries in West Africa

Main issues

Currently in rural West Africa, access to energy is expensive and unreliable mainly because of:

• Energy services are often inadequate or non-existent;
• Agri-food processes lack energy efficiency;
• Lack of competence and training of workforce on the production and management of energy.

This problem of access to energy limits the development of agro-food SMEs in rural areas and increases their operating costs (energy and losses). To secure their energy supply, most agro-food SMEs migrate to urban areas. This results in post-harvest losses (related to transport and storage) and environmental pollution (poor by-product management and excessive use of traditional firewood)

Opportunities and solutions 

However, there are opportunities to make agrofood SMEs self-sufficient in enegy:

• An abundance of unused and undervalued agricultural residues, potentially a source of energy, is available;
• The emergence of numerous commercial biomass energy recovery technologies adapted to the scale of SMEs;
• African states and decision-makers committed to the development of bioenergy.

The objectives of project BioStar carried out by the BioWooEB research unit are:

• Implement and integrate energy production systems from residues in SMEs for the sustainable supply of heat and / or motive power and / or electricity;
• Rationalize energy consumption through a better understanding of the transformation processes and the organization of unit operations;
• Co-construct biomass and / or energy supply chains with actors from rural areas;
• Strengthen skills in energy production systems adapted to the needs of SMEs.

The ambition of CIRAD and its partners through BioStar is to implement biomass energy recovery processes in 14 agro-food processing units in the cashew, mango, shea, rice and néré sectors in three countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal. 

Expected impacts

For agro-food SMEs and rural populations in West Africa, we anticipate that the BioStar project will promote:

• Better efficiency of production systems, control of energy costs, and economic profitability of activities;
• Reduction of food losses, contributing to food security and an increase in product quality;
• Development of agro-processing enterprises in rural areas;
• Stabilization or development of employment in rural areas;
• Reduction of environmental impacts due to the lack of residue management;
• Development of the bioenergy sector through the establishment of specialized companies (equipment manufacturers, maintenance of infrastructures, provision of energy services, etc.).