Report claims Eni’s biofuel project in Kenya threatening food security
In Kenya, an investigation carried out by SourceMaterial and Politico, with support from T&E data, shows that an Italian government biofuels project in Kenya is potentially harming local farmers and threatening food security. The investigation into Eni’s flagship project raises doubts as to whether non-edible biofuel crops can really be scaled sustainably, says T&E.
In 2024, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Italian Climate Fund announced a $210 million investment in Eni’s Kenyan subsidiaries to expand the production and processing of non-edible biofuel crops. Eni claimed this would support the decarbonisation of the global transport industry and the livelihoods of up to 200,000 small-scale Kenyan oilseed farmers.
Yet, trade records assessed by T&E show that Eni imported significant amounts of rapeseed from South Africa into its Kenyan subsidiaries. Customs records then appear to indicate that much of the rapeseed oil is re-exported to Italy, which could account for up to 80% of all of Eni’s exports from Kenya to its refineries in Gela and Venice in 2025. Eni disputes this, claiming that it is in fact 40%.
The investigation carried out by SourceMaterial and Politico also finds that farmers were encouraged to grow castor beans, only to be abandoned by the middlemen that had recruited them on Eni’s behalf. They claim to be left with a useless, inedible crop which they had planted instead of maize. In interviews, SourceMaterial heard claims from farmers that planting castor instead of maize had left families without enough to eat. According to Valerio Bini, a University of Milan professor who interviewed 50 farmers in Eni’s project in May 2025, virtually all had replaced food crops with castor. This is particularly worrying in the context of the current global food crisis, says T&E.
Category: Fuels
