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Green Fuels and INOCAS announce Macaúba value-chain collaboration

UK-headed biofuel technology developer Green Fuels Ltd has announced that it has reached an agreement with INOCAS GmbH to engage in the development of a sustainable fuel value chain in Minas Gerais, Brazil using Macaúba with novel intercropping and agro-silvopastoral techniques.

Green Fuels has reached an agreement with INOCAS to engage in the development of a sustainable fuel value chain in Minas Gerais, Brazil using Macaúba with novel intercropping and agro-silvopastoral techniques (photos courtesy Universidade Federal de Viçosa).

According to a statement, the partners intend to ensure future sustainable fuel production for distributed energy and land, marine, and air transport sectors, as signatories of the Zona da Mata Biokerosene and Renewables Platform – an integrated biofuel and reforestation value chain promoted by the City of Juiz de Fora.

With the support of the UK Government Prosperity Fund, Green Fuels is establishing a biofuel production plant in the Zona da Mata, The agreement will provide saplings of Macaúba and other native species, acquired from the nursery Viveiro Nativo, to INOCAS  to  establish Technical Demonstration Units (TDUs)  in the Zona da Mata and Cerrado biomes.

It is expected that the programme will directly benefit around 100 small family farmers and the entire rural value chain.

Considering that the species of Macaúba, Acrocomia aculeata, produces on average four times more per hectare in relation to other oilseeds, generates more jobs, can be produced in consortium with other crops or in the silvopastoral regime, and adapts to any producer from family to large entrepreneur, reducing the effects of rural exodus, and can be produced in a great diversity of soil and climate, it has the capacity of generating more sustainable income, said Johannes Zimple, CEO of INOCAS.

This will be achieved through practical measurement of parameters such as UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) compliance, biodiversity, the effect of land-use change and productivity, to promote recovery of degraded pasture through sustainable land use combined with environmentally sensitive reforestation, supporting the replenishment of the region´s aquifers and river basins.

Green Fuels will use these TDUs to inform Brazilian and international stakeholders as to the Macaúba production model’s sustainability, and to differentiate it from unsustainable oil crops, said Manuel Luis M. Thompson-Flôres, CEO of Green Fuels Ventures América Latina.

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