07 January 2020: His Excellency Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, President of Zambia Launches Sunbird Bioenergy’s Out-Grower Program in Kawambwa, Luapula Province. The following os news coverage on Prime TV’s evening news. Bwalya Kanyanta Ng’andu (Minister of Finance), Micheal Katambo (Minister of Agriculture), Dr Edgar Lungu (President of Zambia), Richard Bennett (CEO Sunbird Bioenergy) and Nickson Chilangwa (Minister of Luapula Province) President Lungu and Mark Muchinga, Sunbird Bio

His Excellency Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu President of Zambia today launched Sunbird Bioenergy Zambia’s cassava out-grower program in Kawambwa, Luapula province. The out-grower program will recruit 20,000 local small-holder farmers to grow 700,000 tonnes of sustainable cassava feedstock per year for our biorefinery that is currently under construction. The biorefinery will produce 100 million litres of bioethanol which is approximately 20% of the country’s petrol requirement. I ur

Considerable progress continues to be made on Sunbird Bioenergy Sierra Leone’s cassava project, and we are pleased to report that during our quarterly review of the nursery, the cassava yield far exceed expectation. This gives significant confidence to proceed with our ambition of implementing cassava value-chain technologies to enable the production of cassava flour, starch and high maltose syrup (“HMS“). In preparation, the nursery team continue to multiply the best perform

LUSAKA – Immediately after the Luapula Expo, Sunbird Bioenergy Africa’s project team mobilised to Kawambwa, Luapula Province, Zambia, to commence work on a cassava out-grower program that will provide the sustainable feedstock for a bioenergy project that is expected to produce 120 million litres of bioethanol per year for the country’s ethanol-fuel blending program. The Luapula Expo was organised to promote the regions investment potential in agriculture, tourism and mining

The Sunbird Bioenergy agronomy team have completed the planting of a 400 Ha cassava nursery in Sierra Leone. This will provide high-yielding (virus eliminated) planting sticks for the out-grower program that we intend to launch in 2018. The long-term intention is to establish a nucleus farm and out-grower program that will produce 600,000 tonnes of cassava per year. This is expected to create economic opportunities for 20,000 small-scale farmers. Sunbird Bioenergy will use th

Dr Ian Robertson and officials from the Ministry of Power and Energy review the cassava nursery in Mushumbi Pools. The nursery has been established to produce planting sticks (seed) for Sunbird Bioenergy’s bioethanol project in Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe. When completed, the project will produce 120 million litres of ethanol for the domestic fuel market and 15,000 tonnes of starch for the local food market. The nursery is maintained by local small-scale farmers under the d

Love Hammond, Agricultural Manager, discusses the transition from Addax Bioenergy to Sunbird Bioenergy with local small-scale farmers. A key initiative of Sunbird Bioenergy is the development of sustainable rural out-grower programs and the creation of economic opportunities for local communities. A key learning from the event is the that regional farmers have excess capacity to produce crops but there is no local market for them. The community relations program will continue

Sunbird Bioenergy has established a 200 Ha cassava nursery to multiply improved varieties of cassava for use in the bioenergy industry. The multiplication process is expected to commence in November 2016. This will then provide sufficient high quality planting material (cassava sticks) for the launch of the out-grower program in 2017. New cassava planted in May 2016 New varieties of cassava growing as forecast during the rainy season No irrigation necessary during the rainy s

Richard Bennett outlined Sunbird Bioenergy’s vision for a sustainable bioenergy project in Zambia at the Cassava World Conference in Lusaka, Zambia. The proposed project will convert cassva into ethanol for the Zambian Government’s fuel blending program. The primary objectives for the Government are to: Create rural employment Reduce imports of petroleum (import substitution) Reduce local fuel prices The project is forecast to be implemented in 2017. #Cassava #RichardBennett