Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Peasants Join the Biodiesel Market

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TEGUCIGALPA, Mar 23 2009 (IPS) - Peasant farmers of the Salamá cooperative in the northern Honduran region of Tocoa have achieved a three-year dream: their own biodiesel production plant to supply the local market. The plant, which will produce more than 9,800 liters of fuel per day, was donated by the government of Colombia and presented on Mar. 16 by that country's President Alvaro Uribe.

“Finally we have realized our dream and we are going to produce fuel from natural products, like palm oil,” the cooperative's president, Neptalí Rivas, told Tierramérica.

With a price tag of 1.1 million dollars, the production facility has an energy generating system provided by the government. Initially, it will supply biofuel to the Honduran Atlantic coast.