Biofuels 'superpower' Angola soon to be self-sufficient in food production - FAO

Decades of gruesome civil war, landmines, blood diamonds, hundreds of thousands of refugees, the total destruction of infrastructures, near state collapse... these are some of the common images that come to mind when we hear about Angola. But things are changing rapidly in the former Portuguese colony. The fragile peace struck between the ruling MPLA (formerly backed by the Soviets) and the UNITA (backed by the US), was strengthened by the death in 2002 of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi. Since then, the country has stabilized and has attracted foreign investors interested in tapping the country's large oil resources.

Angola still faces the daunting tasks of rebuilding its infrastructure, retrieving weapons from its heavily-armed civilian population and resettling tens of thousands of refugees who fled the fighting. Impassable roads and destroyed railroads have cut off large parts of the country.

Because of this situation, many Angolans used to rely on food aid, but according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), this era will soon belong to the past: Angola is set to become self-sufficient in food due to the revival of its agricultural sector which has once again begun tapping the country's immense natural potential. This is very encouraging news, and a refreshing change from the mainstream media's pathological focus on Africa's 'eternal misery'.

According to Angolan news agency Angop, FAO country representative Anatolio Ndong Mba, who was speaking after a meeting with Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Afonso Pedro Canga, said that Angola is not only becoming self-sufficient in food but that the country can now even look forward to becoming a distribution base for agricultural products to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).

Biofuel 'superpower'
The large country - roughly five times the size of the UK - currently uses a marginal fraction of its arable land potential. Its 16 million inhabitants grow crops, in an inefficient manner, on approximately 3.6 million hectares, out of a total of 88 million hectares suitable for agriculture. Even after all the needs for food, fiber, feed and fuel wood have been satisfied for the rapidly growing local population, by 2050 Angola will still have one of the largest areas of non-forest agricultural land available for other purposes, notably for the cultivation of energy crops (see below). Angola is indeed one of the countries which make Africa's future sustainable bioenergy production potential so large (earlier post). A rough estimate puts Angola's export potential in 2050 at around 6 Exajoules per year, the equivalent of 2.7 million barrels of oil per day.

A quick overview of this energy potential looks as follows:
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: food security :: poverty alleviation :: rural development :: energy farming :: biofuel trade :: Angola ::

What follows is a very rough and summary overview, but it may give a clue as to whether the country deserves the status of potential 'biofuels superpower'. We point to some basic variables that limit the amount of land that can be dedicated to bioenergy production, after which we guesstimate the potential for 2050.

Population and food demand
Angola's current population stands at around 16 million. Using the 'medium' growth variant of the UN's population projections, the country's population will grow to 18.3 million by 2010, to 23.7 million by 2020, 30 million by 2030, 37 million by 2040 and 43 million by 2050 after it is set to stabilize. In short, in roughly four decades, Angola's population will triple in size. Even though the country is rapidly urbanising, it remains largely agrarian, with 63% of its people living off the land today, to 45% in 2030.

If we assume that Angola will need some 5 million hectares to feed 15 million people and to satisfy demand for fuel wood, fodder and fiber, by 2050 the country's farming population will require some 15 million hectares of land. This calculation can be refined by looking at the actual dietary needs and the composition of diets as they change over time, and at the shifting demands for fuel wood.

An average Angolan person currently consumes some 175kg of cereals, 273kg of starchy roots, 14kg of sugar products, 6.5kg of pulses, 1kg of oil crops, 9kg of vegetable oils, 22kg of vegetables, 29kg of fruits, 20kg of meat products, and 16kg of fish per year, making a total of 2100 kilocalories per day. The FAO made projections on food demand in the future (for 2030 and 2050 respectively) and for Angola daily calory uptake by 2030 is expected to stand at 2600kcal per capita. In 2050 this has increased to 2930kcal/capita/day. Changes in the composition of the diet may occur, but exploring them would take us too far here. So let us linearily extrapolate current food demand over 2030 (2600kcal) and to 2050 (2930kcal), per major crop, and express it in kilogram:

-Cassava: 242 kg per year (current consumption), making up 655kcal, or 31% of daily calorie intake. This demand is expected to grow to 295kg per year by 2030 and to 336kg per year by 2050.
-Wheat: 129 kg per year (current consumption), making up 244kcal, or 12% of daily calorie intake. This demand is expected to grow to 165kg per year by 2030 and to 186kg per year by 2050.
-Corn (maize): 37 kg per year (current consumption), making up 340kcal, or 16% of daily calorie intake. This demand is expected to grow to 45kg per year by 2030 and to 53kg per year by 2050.
-Sweet potato: 29 kg per year (current consumption), making up 76kcal, or 3.6% of daily calorie intake. This demand is expected to grow to 36kg per year by 2030 and to 40kg per year by 2050.
-Sugar (raw): 12kg per year (current consumption), making up 110kcal, or 5.2% of daily calorie intake. This demand is expected to grow to 15kg per year by 2030 and to 17kg per year by 2050.
-Millet: 5.7kg per year (current consumption), making up 47kcal, or 2.2% of daily calorie intake. This demand is expected to grow to 7kg per year by 2030 and to 8kg per year by 2050.
-Soybean oil: 3.7kg per year (current consumption), making up 91kcal, or 4.3% of daily calorie intake. This demand is expected to grow to 4.6kg per year by 2030 and to 5.2kg per year by 2050.

These crops make up roughly 75% of the average Angolan person's daily diet.

Land availability
Now let us quickly list the potential land area suitable for these crops and their yields in Angola, and see how much land will be available after the food demand in 2030 and 2050 is satisfied. The data can be found at the International Institute for Advanced System's Analysis' database on Agro-Ecological Zones. The following data assume rainfed cropping, high inputs and a maximized technology mix (as it is achievable with current technologies); we only show "very suitable to moderately suitable land" and potential yields for crops on these classes of land under the maximized technology mix (we do not include "marginally suitable land" that can in fact be used for the production of particular energy crops). Importantly, these data explicitly account for sustainability (land base limited to take into account sustainable water use, prevention of erosion, mitigating soil nutrient depletion by allowing areas to be left fallow, etc...):

Cassava: 18 million hectares, average yield of 9.2 tons/ha
Wheat: 2.7 million hectares, average yield of 3tons/ha
Corn (maize): 34.5 million hectares, average yield of 7.2 tons/ha
Sweet potato: 25.8 million hectares, average yield of 7.4tons/ha
Sugar: 5 million hectares, average yield of 8.7tons/ha
Millet: 22.4 milion hectares, average yield of 2.9tons/ha
Soybean: 35 million hectares, average yield of 2.3tons/ha

Now in 2030, when Angola's population is projected to have reached 30 million and per capita food demand has risen to 2600kcal per day, the following amounts of land are needed to satisfy increased food demand for these crops (which make up 75% of the Angolan diet):

-Cassava: 8.85 million tons needed; with an average yield of 9.2 tons/ha, some 962,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 17 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed cassava production
-Wheat: 4.95 million tons needed; with an average yield of 3 tons/ha, some 1,650,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 1 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed wheat production
-Corn (maize): 1.35 million tons needed; with an average yield of 7.2 tons/ha, some 187,500 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 34.3 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed corn production
-Sweet potato: 1.08 million tons needed; with an average yield of 7.4 tons/ha, some 146,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 25.6 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed sweet potato production
-Sugar: 450,000 tons needed; with an average yield of 8.7 tons/ha, some 52,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 4.9 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed sugarcane production
-Millet: 210,000 tons needed; with an average yield of 2.9 tons/ha, some 72,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 22.3 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed millet production
-Soybean: 138,000 tons of soybean oil are needed; at an oil content of 20% and an extraction rate of 70% (yielding 140 kg of oil per ton of beans), and an average yield of 2.3tons of beans per ha (equalling 322 kg of oil per ha), some 428,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 34.5 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for soybean production

Repeating this simple calculus for the year 2050, when Angola's population is expected to have reached 43 million and per capita food demand has increased to 2930kcal per day:

-Cassava: 14.4 million tons needed; with an average yield of 9.2 tons/ha, some 1,570,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 16.4 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed cassava production
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-Wheat: 8 million tons needed; with an average yield of 3 tons/ha, some 2,666,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves virtually no land available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed wheat production
-Corn (maize): 2.3 million tons needed; with an average yield of 7.2 tons/ha, some 320,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 34.1 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed corn production
-Sweet potato: 1.7 million tons needed; with an average yield of 7.4 tons/ha, some 232,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 25.5 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed sweet potato production
-Sugar: 731,000 tons needed; with an average yield of 8.7 tons/ha, some 84,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 4.9 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed sugarcane production
-Millet: 344,000 tons needed; with an average yield of 2.9 tons/ha, some 118,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 22.3 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for rainfed millet production
-Soybean: 224,000 tons of soybean oil are needed; at an oil content of 20% and an extraction rate of 70% (yielding 140 kg of oil per ton of beans), and an average yield of 2.3tons of beans per ha (equalling 322 kg of oil per ha), some 694,000 hectares of land are needed; this leaves around 34.3 million hectares available for the production of bioenergy feedstocks on land that is suitable for soybean production

Angola's land base is suited for the cultivation of a range of other crops, that do not form a major part of the Angolan diet, such as:
-Grain sorghum: 32.2 million hectares, average yield of 5.7 tons/ha
-Groundnut: 48 million hectares, average yield of 2.5 tons/ha
-Rice: 19.6 million hectares, average yield of 4.6 tons/ha

In short, after the basic but growing food demands of the growing population of the country are met in 2030 and 2050, a large area of land remains that can be devoted to the sustainable production of either food or biofuel crops for exports.

Other variables and land available for bioenergy
The land availability data as sketched above, should be interpreted correctly: the land suitable for several crops overlaps with that suitable for other crops. Using these data, relatively complex simulation and scenario tools are used to calculate which crop is best grown on which type of land, while satisfying the food, fuel and fiber demand of growing populations. Such a calculus would take us too far here, which is why we keep only a basic approach by looking at the total land needed for food, which we substract from the total arable land base - without delving into computations on which type of land suitable for which type of crop should be used for a particular energy crop under changing food, fuel wood and fiber demand scenarios.

This basic exercise goes as follows: in 2050, some 5,684,000 hectares of land are needed to satisfy 75% of the total Angolan population's daily food needs. The average Angolan's diet in 2050 will only contain 2% bovine meat and 2% poultry meat, so the increase in land needed for meat production will not be excessive. Thus, in order to satisfy the remaining 25% of food demand, 4% of which consists of meat products, we assume that another 2 million hectares of land are needed (it will be less, but we are generous because meat demand may increase more sharply, even though studies indicate that there are no clear correlations between rising GDP and increasing meat consumption in the developing world - contrary to trends observed in the West).

In short, a total of roughly 8 million hectares of land will be needed in Angola to feed its 43 million inhabitants in 2050. Being very generous in accounting for fuel wood needs, we add another 2 million hectares (a very high estimate) and for the urban sprawl that goes with Angola's fairly rapid urbanisation, we add yet another million hectares lost to cities and infrastructures (roads, railroads, highways, airports, etc...), assuming all these expansions are built in fertile land (which will not be the case). Finally, we add protected areas and conservation areas (unique ecosystems, natural parks) as defined by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). (A protected area is defined by the IUCN as an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means.) These take up roughly 8 million hectares in Angola. In our summary assessment, they are not to be touched.

In sum: 8 million hectares needed for food production, 2 million hectares needed to satisfy fuel wood demand, 1 million hectares for urbanisation and 8 million hectares for protected areas, makes a grand total of 19 million hectares that can not be devoted to growing energy crops.

Considering that Angola's total potential arable land base is 88 million hectares, the country will have some 69 million hectares of land available in 2050 to grow energy crops.

Biomass energy potential
By 2050, considerable scientific and technological breakthroughs in agriculture and plant science will have been made and will allow for serious yield increases. We do not take these into account here. Equally, efficiency increases in bioconversion technologies can be expected, which we don't take into account either (for an overview of Brazil's experience on this front, see our earlier post). Instead, we stick to the simplistic scenario of using land for the production of 'primitive' first generation liquid biofuels (e.g. converting sugarcane or cassava into ethanol, and groundnut oil into biodiesel, while burning the biomass residues to generate power), using today's relatively low yields and crops that are not the most suitable for biofuel production.

Angola's bioenergy production potential in 2050 - expressed in joules and barrels of oil equivalence (boe) - would then look as follows:
-Energy from sugarcane: we use up all land suitable for sugarcane (minus land needed to satisfy food demand), because of all the crops mentioned, it gives the highest energy yield with current conversion technologies; assuming an average net energy yield of 150 Gj/ha, 4.9 million hectares planted with sugarcane can be converted into roughly 735 Pj/ha/yr. We now have (78mio ha minus 4.9mio ha) 64.1 million hectares left.
-Energy from cassava: we use up all land suitable for cassava (minus land needed to satisfy food demand), because of all the crops mentioned, we assume it gives the second highest energy yield with current conversion technologies; assuming an average net energy yield of 100 Gj/ha, 16.4 million hectares planted with cassava can be converted into roughly 1.64 Ej/ha/yr. We now have (64.1 mio ha minus 16.4mio ha) 47.7 million hectares left.
-Energy from sweet potato: we use up all land suitable for sweet potato (minus land needed to satisfy food demand), because of all the crops mentioned, we assume it gives the third highest energy yield with current conversion technologies; assuming an average net energy yield of 75 Gj/ha, 25.5 million hectares planted with sweet potato can be converted into roughly 1.91 Ej/ha/yr. We now have (47.7mio ha minus 25.5mio ha) 22.2 million hectares left.
-Energy from sorghum: we use up all land suitable for sorghum (minus land needed to satisfy food demand), because of all the crops mentioned, we assume it gives the fourth highest energy yield with current conversion technologies; assuming an average net energy yield of 75 Gj/ha, 22.2 million hectares planted with sweet potato can be converted into roughly 1.66 Ej/ha/yr. We now have used up all land that was available for biofuel feedstock production.

In total, and in 2050, Angola would have enough land available for the sustainable production of roughly 5.945 Ej of net energy per year. This translates into around 974.6 million barrels of oil equivalent, or a net energy production equivalent to 2,760,000 barrels of oil per day.

These are very conservative estimates, because they rely on current, low yields, on current conversion technologies and on the use of crops that most likely will be replaced by higher yielding crops in the future (such as grasses and fast-rotation wood crops). Overall net energy increases of 30% by 2050 are not unrealistic, but we left them out of this overview.

Conclusion
Currently, detailed assessments of Angola's long-term bioenergy potential are not available. The short overview we presented here only has a very indicative value. However, analytical models and scenario generation tools to make more detailed assessments of a country's technical bioenergy potential have been developed, and a satisfactory body of empirical data is available to make estimates that span a large time horizon.

Such long-term estimates would include a far broader range of variables (such as land needed for meat production under different technology mixes, energy yield projections for energy crops that are matched more accurately to different types of land, etc...), a larger set of different scenarios (for population growth and consequent food, fodder, fiber and fuel wood demand), and a more refined analysis of (uncertain) factors that might influence the long-term sustainability of fuel production (such as the effects of climate change). The Biopact is currently working on three such studies: for the Democratic Republic of Congo, for Mozambique and for Angola.

We should further stress that these analyses only deal with the technical potential for bioenergy production, not with the actual economic potential, which is far more difficult to assess because it is dependent on uncertain factors that are resistant to projections over large time horizons. Assessments of the technical potential for biofuel production in a particular country are merely a starting point for economic studies and for eventual policy and investment decisions.

Jonas Van Den Berg and Laurens Rademakers, Biopact team.

More information:
For population projections, see the UN's Population Division Database, which offers the 2004 revision of its World Population Prospects: database.

On projections of food demand and calorie uptake, see World agriculture: towards 2030/2050 - Interim Report [*.pdf], which is an updated version, with extension of projections to 2050, of two of the key chapters (Chapters 2 and 3) of the study World Agriculture: towards 2015/2030 - An FAO Perspective [*.pdf] published in 2003.

On the food balance sheets and the current composition of diets, see the FAO's Food Balance Sheet database.

For land suitability data per crop, see the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the database it made in collaboration with the FAO, on global agro-ecological zones. At the website, click "spreadsheets" > "additional" > and then select the crop; spreadsheets are in excel format and open in the browers; the website is optimized for IE browsers. (The same data can be found alternatively at the FAO's GAEZ website).

For land suitability maps for 30 different (tropical) crops under rainfed conditions and under different input levels, see the FAO's Land Suitability Maps website.

For bioenergy conversion factors, see this quick reference list [*.pdf].

For an in-depth analysis of Africa's bioenergy production potential, see this earlier post.