BiomassWeb

The increasing global demand for food, as well as for feed and biomass-based raw materials, e.g. fuel and fiber crops, has increased the pressure on the agricultural sector in the past decade, especially in Africa. Concepts to increase food security while attending growing demands for non-food biomass and developing alternative biomass sources are still in their infant stages. BiomassWeb aims at contributing to food security in Sub-Saharan Africa by focusing on biomass-based value webs.

Biomass-based value webs are complex systems of interlinked value chains in which food and fodder, fuels, and other raw materials are produced, processed and traded. BiomassWeb will investigate the production and utilization of biomass in Africa by looking at current and future biomass demand and supply. The project will identify innovation opportunities in pre- and post-harvest production technologies, institutional settings and governance structures to enhance biomass value webs.

The overall goal of the project is to raise food security in Africa through harnessing productivity and efficiency gains in the whole biomass-producing, processing and trading system by increased integration of all value web components and the cascading utilization of biomass. BiomassWeb addresses the three pillars of food security, i.e. food availability, through enhanced biomass productivity; access to food, through income generation from non-food biomass production, processing and trading; and use of food, through increasing nutritional quality. BiomassWeb expects to contribute to enhancing the capacity of Africa to participate in the emerging regional and international bio-economy.

The project will focus on the productive Sudan savanna belt (Ghana, Nigeria) and the East African highlands (Ethiopia). Analysis will be on a systems level but specific, exemplary ‘model’ value webs will be studied based on cassava, maize, banana/plantain/enset and biomass derived from natural vegetation and agroforestry systems. These case studies allow investigating in detail the local, regional and international flows and trade of biomass and derived products.