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4,000 trees of Jatropha planted in Ngororero district
NGORORERO: The Institute of Scientific and Technological Research, IRST, joined the Nyange population during the Saturday Umuganda where they planted about 4,000 trees of Jatropha, one of the trees that give oil from which biodiesel is made.
This community work held at one hill among the hills which surrounded Nyange sector office where the IRST’s station of Nyange is based. It is near the Muhanga-Karongi road in almost 50km from Muhanga.
After planting jatropha, the people gathered together on the top of the hill to talk with their leaders together with the IRST delegation from Butare.
In his speech, the Director General of IRST Dr Jean Baptiste Nduwayezu says that the first reason the project of manufacturing biodiesel from the local plants stems from the Rwandan security issue as a landlocked country.
“Our country is landlocked; each trouble in the neighboring countries negatively affects us. So we cannot sleep and say that we have sustainable development while our army and police do not have diesel. This was the first reason.
“The second one, we wanted try to fight against the rise of the oil products and to preserve our environment,” says Dr Nduwayezu.
The Jatropha tree is called “Ikivurahinda” at Bugarama in Rusizi district and “Icyomoro” in Kigali city. As for Cyprien Nsengimana, the Mayor of Ngororero district, during his word, jatropha is baptized “Kimaranzara (hunger finisher)” in his district.
He urged all the people of Ngororero to plant Kimaranzara so as to avoid hunger.
“We want every home to plant 100 trees of Kimaranzara and around the all streets and roads we will plant Kimaranzara so, no more hunger,” joked Nsengiyumva.
After the meeting, some of the people of Nyange sector say that they are happy with this new tree which will enrich them.
“Nobody will sleep in the house without light. Every body is happy. If only there were three laboratories to produce biodiesel and if only they brought jatropha in the whole country and I myself want to take it and plant it in my all land. Thanks to IRST because they have promised to provide us with jatropha seedlings” says Domitilia Uzamukunda a woman of 42 years.
During this Umuganda, about 4,000 seedling of jatropha were planted. One MP, born in this sector, also came from Kigali to join the Nyange population in this community work. Holding a jatropha seedling, Honorable Christine Mukarubuga, says “This is an economic plant to be popularized all over the country because it will generate money for the people and our country will not need to depend on Middle East in terms of oil”
The biodiesel project was launched in April 2007. The IRST biodiesel laboratory situated in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, has the capacity of producing 2,000 litters of biodiesel a day. It uses as row materials the palm oil, molinga oreifera oil, jatropha oil, soybeans oil etc.
The IRST plans to cultivate jatropha (40%), moringa (40%) and palms (20%) on the area on 226 ha. “When this achieved, the Rwanda will not need to import diesel anymore,” says Mr Audace Kanshahu, the IRST Director of Unit of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (UPME).
By Oswald Mutuyeyezu
