Introduction and context: global biomass resources - Biomass as Energy Source: Resources, Systems and Applications - page 25

Figure 1.17. Savannah in South Africa close to the Kruger Park (photo E. Dahlquist).
intensively today. It can also be interesting to note that the cost for sugar cane ethanol production
is 0.25 US$/liter compared to 0.4-0.7 $/liter for fossil gasoline in Brazil (Brito Cruz, 2008).
1.5.6 Africa south of the Sahara
Africa has many different climatic conditions, from very dry areas in the north to tropical and
subtropical south of Sahara. In the north, biomass has difficult conditions while south of Sahara
the conditions are mainly quite good, especially inWestern and CentralAfrica. Coming to the very
south, we see other areas with less rain and thus difficult conditions for crops. This is especially
true in Namibia, Botswana and parts of South Africa (see Figs. 1.17 and 1.18). The potential for
using biomass for most of the needs is thus quite high in most countries south of Sahara. The
problem in many countries is the instable political and cultural conditions causing problems in
the development of both society and economy.
One interesting initiative to improve the productivity ofAfrican crops is the new species breaded
at theAfrican Rice Center under the name “NewRices forAfrica” (NERICA). Here rice is selected
to tolerate harsh growing conditions and low nutrient levels.
In South Africa, we also have areas with quite good conditions for crops, and there are many
wine yards in the region close to Stellenbosch and Cape Town.
1.6 OTHER REGIONS
There are many areas with less good conditions for agriculture, but where animal breeding may
be an alternative. The amount of arable land globally is distributed in the following way for
the largest countries: USA 179,000 ha, India 169,700 ha, China 135,557 ha, Russia 126,820 ha,
Brazil 65,200 ha, Australia 50,600 ha, Canada 45,700 ha, Indonesia 33,546 ha, Ukraine 33,496 ha,
Nigeria 30,850 ha, Mexico 27,300 ha, Argentina 27,200 ha, Turkey 26,672 ha, Pakistan 21,960,
Kazakhstan 21,671 ha, France 19,582 ha, Spain 18,217 ha, Thailand 18,000 ha, Sudan 16,433 ha,
South Africa 15,712 ha, Poland 14,330 ha and Germany 12,020 ha.