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British firm to use Ethiopian wild weed
A British chemical company, Venique Biotech, has been given the rights to commercially exploit a plant grown only in Ethiopia. The tall plant known as vernonia, and disliked by Ethiopian farmers who consider it a weed, is grown in the valleys of eastern Ethiopia.
According to a recent report, the Ethiopian government signed an agreement in July with the British firm to commercialise vernonia as a chemical. The plant produces a shiny black seed which, when it is pressed, produces oil that offers a source of epoxy compounds that have previously only been
produced from petrochemicals.
The oil would offer a green base for the manufacture of paints, plastics and adhesives. In addition, the plant has pharmaceutical potentials. One of the company executives involved, Paul McClory, said, "Vernonia has the potential to become the industrial soya bean of the
21st century."
The deal took place under the auspices of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's
Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement, one of the few existing deals of its kind. Vernique would pay license fees and royalties and would give a share of the profits to the Ethiopian government over the next 10 years in exchange for access to the plant.
World-renowned environmentalist, Dr Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, director-general of Ethiopia's Environmental Protection Authority, commented: "With petrochemical products becoming more and more expensive and environmentally less and less acceptable, I think benefits will indeed accrue to Ethiopia. For better or for worse, we are in this together - and I am confident it will be for the better."
The Americans were planning to exploit vernonia, but discovered that it would not grow in their climate. Michael Dobell, co-founder of Vernique, and a specialist in African agriculture, said that a vernonia test cultivation started in 2004, produced a small crop of seeds in 2005. Vernique would grow about 200hectares of vernonia this season and would get between one and two tonnes of vernonia oil per hectare.
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