Stakeholders of Ghana Federation of Forest and Farm Producers endorses newly introduced grass charcoal

Stakeholders with the Millar Institute for Transdisciplinary and Development Studies in the new grass charcoal innovation have given some exciting testimonies, following the grass charcoal training they have acquired from the Millar Institute.

Grass charcoal also known as briquettes is a new innovation introduced by Prof. Millar of the Millar Institute for Transdisciplinary and Development Studies. The new innovation came along with huge benefits and some communities have described it as a life changer, especially for the people living in rural communities.

Through this innovation, bush fire burning and even farmers who continuously cry about losing their farm produce to bush burning will cry no more. This is because what is being known as a nuisance grass has now become an essential commodity to landowners across the Savannah ecological zones.

Stakeholders, who were part of the dialogue engagement organized by the Millar Institute on Friday, February 24, 2023, say they are particularly excited because the innovation makes use of a very simple material and also makes use of locally available materials.

Mr. Mark Akparibo, Executive Director of Tere- Bere lauded Millar Institute for the new innovation.

According to Mr. Akparibo, they are looking at how they can improve upon the environment and key issues are basically fire and its environmental effects.

“The Millar Institute has been able to develop through research brought about grass charcoal which has also been translated into the training of various Forest and Farm Producers. My organization Tere-bere is one of the organizations that benefited from the training program and we are quite excited to be sharing some of the results we are having in grass charcoal production and other Organic matter from crops that are also been used for grass charcoal.

“We are particularly excited because the innovation makes use of a very simple material and also makes use of locally available materials.

“I can say that for my group, we decided that we will go beyond just grass and to look for other locally available materials to be able to produce the grass briquette and I must say that we have been able to produce some grass charcoal which our members are using within their localities.

“Through our various research programs, we have realized that close to about 90% of biodiversity in the northern savannah ecological zone is been reduced through bush burning. So, a lot of what is happening is as a result of bush burning which also reduces the tree cover in the ecological zone but also prevents another biodiversity from thriving. So, we believe that if bush burning is able to stop, close to 90% of our forest resources will grow up,” Mr. Akparibo stated.

Executive Director of Community Action in Development and Research Eric Dalinpuo, told this reporter that his group members received the new innovation with excitement. According to him, his members were able to produce what they are using daily in their various households. However, stressing they are now looking at producing in a commercial quantity.

“We had a project with FAO called the FFF project and under the FFF project, we have a number of organizations that comes together as beneficiaries of FFF project and these organizations come together and formed what we called Ghana Federation of Forest and Farm Producers GhaFFAP and under the umbrella of GhaFFAP, the Millar Institute has gotten also some funding from FAO to take us through this lovely new product that’s coming up call grass briquette and fortunately all the organization under GHaFFAP were eligible to get training from Millar Institute and they did well, they went round and train all the organizations and these organizations that have huge membership are also trickling down the training to their membership. So, we are beneficiaries.

"Since we received the training from Millar Institute, we have to replicate it to so many member groups and the member groups are so happy and so much interested in the new learning and some of them are making the charcoal at their household level.

"Now, what we want to do, is to see how we can go commercial because this is something we have the material available everywhere and they can fetch this grass to begin to make income for themselves. So, is the income-making aspect that is important to us as an organization, It is true they can use it for their house cocking but how will they make extra income for themselves? So, we will see how we can get a potential buyer and see if we can also bring our women together to produce in the commercial quantity we can supply," he stated.

Nana Kwame Paul Executive Director of Organic Farming Association (ABOFA)

Nana Kwame Paul Executive Director of Organic Farming Association (ABOFA) who was also part of the dialogue meeting organized by the Millar Institute on Friday said, with regards to the production of the grass briquette which was introduced to them in the year 2022, they took the initiative and decided to expand and train more on the briquettes innovation.

“Initially when the call came, people had some perceptions and they were asking whether is possible to produce charcoal with grass but luckily for us, we had training at the Ofrokrom at the Chief Palace.

“We started with a few women that were committed to producing the grass, we try to bring in other things that were not used and were thrown away by people such as coconut hats, maize stalls, maize sticks, and the normal grass.

“A lot of stakeholders have come on board hopefully to be trained and other NGOs want us to train their groups in these charcoal briquettes.

“Honestly speaking, I have tested it, I have used it in my house and I have seen the difference because I have the normal charcoal and the briquettes and when you compare the period of using it, will tell you that you have to go for grass briquette. It takes a longer time to reduce in size and have more of the dust. It also has a contact that heats very fast. So, as compared to the normal charcoal it goes very fast. So, when you are cooking and you want it fast, use the briquettes instead of using the normal charcoal," he intimated.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen a media personality in the Upper East Region who fell in love with the grass charcoal innovation also shared his experience during the grass charcoal dialogue meeting after going through the grass charcoal practical exercise in Winkongo, a community in the Talensi District.

Mr. Ngamegbulam who expressed optimism and excitement about the innovation also used the medium to encourage people of the north to embrace the one-in-a-million innovation by Prof. Millar because it has a lot of benefits to humanity and the environment.

Ghana National Facilitator Forest and Farm Facility of the FAO Elvis Kwuudar who was part of the dialogue program also laud Prof. David Millar for such a innovation.

Professor David Millar, President of Millar Institute for Transdisciplinary and Development Studies, advised Assemblies in the various regions of the north to take up the project.

“If an assembly picks this up, those who are at the Senior High Schools are under the assembly. All need you need as an Assembly is to come out with a bye-law that says, heads of those in Senior High Schools to use grass charcoal and no longer tree charcoal and as an Assembly, you also establish the industry and take some of your unemployed youth or graduates and put them in that sector and they will be producing the charcoal and supplying to the school," he stressed.

According to Prof. Millar, if a such step is taken, money that will go into buying charcoal for the schools will be paid to the Assembly. He described the project as a big opportunity for the Assemblies, especially in this part of the country to generate revenues.