Without taking away land currently in use for cacao, palm oil, coffee or
other crops, we would advocate high precision agronomy to use
marginal lands (notably those subject to drought) to grow bio-fuels
such as the nearly two hundred species of
Jatropha.
This crop would
raise employment, lower dependency on volatile commodities, increase
exports and decrease imports of oil while improving air quality,
especially in Abidjan. Of particular interest to us was the economic
impact of upgrading the railroad that transits the country in a
north-south direction, while also adding two parallel routes to the east
and west (pink lines) while considering an international rail network
(green - expanded version in yellow to the right). The pink east-west
spur into Ghana would be a possible connection to what should be rich
deposits of iron and other minerals around the impact crater known as
Lake Bosumtwi.