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A new charcoal production technology has been introduced to charcoal producers at Tinga in the Bole-Bamboi District in the Northern Region to improve the health of the producers and enhance the community’s climate resilience.

The charcoal kiln technology, which is an oven manufactured with metal plate, is used to generate temperature sufficient for heating wood to produce safe and quality charcoal.

The charcoal kiln was produced by the Department of Agriculture of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) at cost of GH¢15,000 and has a lifespan of more than 10 years.

While the traditional method of producing charcoal takes about four weeks, the new technology takes only three days to produce charcoal.

Occupation

A non-governmental organisation, the Sustainable Agroforestry Initiative (SAFI) that promotes environmental conservation and local development, introduced the new technology to people in the community whose main occupation is charcoal production.

The traditional method of producing charcoal at Tinga and other parts of the country undermines the health of the producers and easily causes bush fires, burns farm produce, impoverishes soil, kills vegetation and causes deforestation.

SAFI project

In a bid to help improve the health of the charcoal producers and make the industry easier and faster and produce quality charcoal at Tinga, SAFI introduced a project titled Sustainable Wood Fuel Enterprise Development to enhance community climate resilience and poverty reduction in the area.

The project, sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP), includes the training of the charcoal producers about the use of kiln charcoal production technology to prevent waste and low yields of charcoal production.

It also supports and encourages the registration of commercial charcoal producers’ associations, community-based wood fuel enterprises through the district assemblies and the Forest Service Division and other regulatory bodies to develop legislation and by-laws to promote production of commercial wood fuel from sustainable managed woodlands.

The formation of the various associations would also help the members to create a legal entity that would be allowed to monopolise the charcoal production within some designated areas.

Conservation of natural resources

The Project Coordinator, Miss Hannah Boaduaa, told the Daily Graphic that the current wood fuel production levels could be improved to increase household incomes through improved technology and regulation of the industry.

Ms Boaduaa thanked the chiefs and people of Tinga for accepting the project and promised to work together with them to enhance the community’s climate resilience and reduce poverty in the area.

The National Coordinator of the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP), Mr George Ortsin, said the introduction of the kiln charcoal technology would minimise the stress the people went through in the production of the charcoal, let them be abreast of the modern way of producing charcoal and improve on the quantity and quality of their production.

He said the project was also considering supporting the producers to adopt a better way of packaging and certification to enable the public to instantly recognise charcoal produced from Tinga in the market.