Kenya’s National Environmental Management Authority has scaled back a proposal by Italian company Nuove Iniziative Industriali Srl to develop a 50,000-hectare jatropha plantation. Luciano Orlandi, owner of the RE company, is seeking further investments in vegetable oils with already almost 1 million hectares of land set to cultivate jatropha across four African countries in order to produce as much as 2 million tons of biodiesel.
Nature Kenya, the oldest conservation group on the continent, opposes the Italian venture saying it will destroy parts of the Dakatcha coastal woodland forest and displace up to 20,000 residents. The project was set to produce 150,000 tons of biodiesel for clients of Swedish retailer IKEA. Orlandi said in a July 20 interview at his company’s headquarters, “It’s a pretentious protest made just by a small group.”
The 64-year-old Orlandi added that his company paid €50,000 for a “rigorous environmental impact” assessment. And while 20 families would be displaced in two new villages outside the plant, each would be hired to work on the project. Nuove Iniziative Industriali Srl would also build 100 houses based on the design of traditional northern Italian farmhouses, known as cascine, for the people displaced in Kenya.
Orlandi will harvest the first hundred hectares of jatropha next month and plans to cultivate 20,000 hectares by 2012. Kenya Jatropha Energy Ltd, Orlandi’s Kenyan unit, will pay €120,000 a year to lease the land with 70% of the biodiesel slated for export to Italy and the rest to be sold locally, Orlandi said.
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