This Jatropha Plantation growing in Haiti has nice healthy two year old Jatropha plants. This plantation is not mechanised in any way and you can see that the jatropha is being grown with beans and butternut squash. Growing Jatropha alongside food crops has many benefits in addition to providing food AND fuel security.
Monoculture Jatropha plantations are prone to diseases and provide no food security for the local people. Growing Jatropha for biofuel is not as important as growing food for the local community to eat!
Promotional Video for Bulk Agro Jatropha Curacas Plantations in India
Well this is really funny! You have to go 2.05 minutes into the video before you even see any Jatropha plants! From the boardroom scenes you can see that the Bulk Agro Jatropha Plantation planogram shows a high percentage of small holder jatropha growers.
The nursery that is growing jatropha looks well organised and the jatropha appeats to be grown in rows in a very clinical way which projects Bulk Agro Pvt's corporate image as the promotional video continues you can see that they have some machinery for extracting the Jatropha seeds from the husks.
This looks like a well organised Jatropha Plantation from the promotional video however the jatropha plants shown are young and there is no intercropping on the plantation video.
This is a great video showing how they grow Jatropha Dutch Caribbean Style! The main problem trying to grow jatropha in the Caribbean seems to be the iguana's eating the leaves; perhaps trying to grow the toxic veriety of Jatropha Curacus Lin would prevent jatropha plant molestation by Iguana's!
Growing Jatropha at Banda Abou Curacao in the Dutch Antilles looks like alot of fun however I would not class this as growing a jatropha plantation, more like a guerrilla gardening movement :)
Here is an Indian project to grow Jatropha Curcas Lin to produce a biofuel crop most plantations who grow jatropha for biodiesel production use a monoculture. In this case if the Indian's were to grow Jatropha intercropped with Gensing they would have an additional income in addition to growing jatropha for biofuel.
The Jatropha growing on the Sandarkera plantation in India looks healthy with each jatropha plant easily having 2.5 square meters in which to grow. Both Genging and Watermelon could grow in between these jatropha rows to create food security and income as well as biodiesel on this jatropha plantation in India.
There is a funny bit where animals are walking where the jatropha is growing and it is captioned with "Jatropha Is No Longer Effective Hedge" Jatropha plants need to be planted about 30cm away from each other so that they become a hedge of course animals will walk through the plantation.
In Africa there is some debate as to whether jatropha plants should grow in 4 meter square patches to allow for elephant migration through the jatropha growing on the plantation without damage.
Investing in a Jatropha plantation seems to be a bit of a trendy thing right now, I have seen quite a few glossy brochures and flash websites as well as a number of failed projects some of the You Tube comments on this video about Jatropha Plantations are interesting background for anyone thinking about and investment in a Jatropha Plantation.
Why Are You Investing Into A Monoculture Jatropha Plantation?
If you are thinking in investing in a monoculture plantation of Jatropha solely for biofuel feedstock rather than a polyculture plantation which takes care of food and fuel security there may not be any carbon credits and only sustainable Jatropha based fuel can be sold into the aviation industry.
So a good question to ask the sales person selling an investment into Jatropha for biofuel is why have they decided to grow a monoculture Jatropha plantation?
Is The Cost Of Replanting Trees In The Revenue Model For The Jatropha Plantation Investment?
The economic life of Jatropha Curacus Lin is about 25 to 35 years some companies are offering 99 year leases, this would mean that the Jatropha plants would have to be replaced two or three times during the life of the investment into the Jatropha plantation.
To use Jatropha Curacus Lin as a sustainable feedstock to produce bio fuels either biodiesel or bio synthetic parafinic kerosene (Bio SPK) for aviation fuel each Jatropha tree needs 2.5m of space in order to grow to the size where it can produce 9Kg of seed.
9 Kg of Jatropha seed produces 3 litres of Crude Jatropha Oil CJO about 4000 litres per hectare is reasonable from 4 year old Jatropha Curacus plants. These are realistic figures for a monoculture plantation most of the companies I have seen who want you to invest in Jatropha as a green alternative investment are focused more on the Jatropha Oil situation rather than the commercial and environmental advantages for polyculture jatropha plantations.
If you are thinking of investing in Jatropha in Africa intercropping is vital to local food security it is the same local people that will be harvesting your investment, so you want them to be able to eat and Jatropha is inedible 25 Hectares of Monoculture Jatropha plantation can make 100,000 litres of Bio Fuel however 25 Hectares of Polyculture plantation can feed local people and boost the economy being more beneficial for the local people and the investor.
Refining Crude Jatropha Oil into Jatropha Methl Ester is a process that can be easily done by anyone familiar with the basic transesterfication process used to make bio diesel however further refining the crude jatropha oil into Bio SPK for Jatropha based Bio aviation fuel requires a much more complicated cracking process in which only 15% of the Crude Jatropha Oil can be converted into Bio SPK aviation fuel.
Investing in clean technology is a good thing we could all destroy less of the planet and reduce global warming by growing and using biofuels instead of carbon based petro chemicals to power our cars and planes, the most important side of the Jatropha plantation should be the investment into the agriculture and food security of the local people producing the Jatropha which is being sold to provide you with the return on your investment.
