http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2009/06/21/desertification-devastates-african-economies-ghana-loses-5-of-agricultural-gdp/ The first place for your business news Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:09:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2009/06/21/desertification-devastates-african-economies-ghana-loses-5-of-agricultural-gdp/comment-page-1/#comment-8138 Stephen Klaber Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:05:42 +0000 http://ghanabusinessnews.com/?p=14326#comment-8138 The largest cause of desertification in Africa is the enormous infestation of African waterways with weeds: Typha, Phragmites, water hyacinth lettuce and fern. Weeds are a large part of desertification worldwide. Typha, which dominates the region where Lake Chad used to be, is in many ways the worst. It can survive the dessication that it creates longer than its competitors, and lives long enough to finish off the wetland it is killing. It has done so to most of the tributaries to Lake Chad, and nearly to the lake itself. The weeds are very resilient, and their control is a never ending process that can only be sustained at a profit. That profit is available in energy. Typha is an excellent ethanol feedstock, quite suitable for charcoal briquettes, or biomass briquettes, and digestible or pyrolizable for fuel gas. Only a market as insatiable as the energy market can absorb a resource so terrifyingly renewable as Typha. If Africa doesn't conquer Typha, Typha will conquer Africa. The largest cause of desertification in Africa is the enormous infestation of African waterways with weeds: Typha, Phragmites, water hyacinth lettuce and fern. Weeds are a large part of desertification worldwide. Typha, which dominates the region where Lake Chad used to be, is in many ways the worst. It can survive the dessication that it creates longer than its competitors, and lives long enough to finish off the wetland it is killing. It has done so to most of the tributaries to Lake Chad, and nearly to the lake itself. The weeds are very resilient, and their control is a never ending process that can only be sustained at a profit. That profit is available in energy. Typha is an excellent ethanol feedstock, quite suitable for charcoal briquettes, or biomass briquettes, and digestible or pyrolizable for fuel gas. Only a market as insatiable as the energy market can absorb a resource so terrifyingly renewable as Typha. If Africa doesn’t conquer Typha, Typha will conquer Africa.

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