Future Harvest 21st Century Jatropha

Jatropha is a species with significant and valuable agricultural attributes, it is hardy, fast growing, early to fruit, productive and diverse in its physiology; the development and breeding strategies to harness the crop’s potential are also diverse and drawn from 40 years or more of aggregated scientific research. Some breeding strategies are based on shaping the adaptability of the plant to

suit specific environments or cultivation models while others are radical; think of Jatropha being grown as an annual crop in North America or Europe, at 30,000 plants per ha. Today growers can make choices based on a variety of characteristics including suitability for the intended cultivation site, disease & pest resistance, harvest period, oil yield, maturation period and toxicity levels –

a remarkable progression from even 5 years ago when one professional plantation development chose its wild sourced planting material on the basis of seed weight.

Unlike other tropical tree crops such as oil palm or natural rubber, there is no library of documented records for the economic production of Jatropha under plantation cultivation – it is a crop almost entirely produced by small holders. Any analysis of the economics of Jatropha under plantation cultivation must begin by defining the setting for such cultivation. The vision of the crop for use

in marginal or degraded lands in semi-arid environments is one of a diverse group of proposed scenarios for its cultivation. Our assessment of the state of development of the crop suggests that yields of seed per ha may be achievable in a range of 2mt to 6mt and possibly more under intensive management in superior growing conditions. Production costs will look very different across this

range of models and so too will revenues per ha. In the more difficult cultivation environments marked by poverty and poor logistics, lower revenue outcomes will be offset by very much lower labour costs and possibly benefited by opportunities to attract premium prices for Jatropha oil and perhaps biodiesel produced at source. In the easier cultivation environments, higher labour costs

should be offset by better values for meal and biomass. EBIT margins in a range of 11.6% to 21.2% look realistically achievable across our different models, with tight management and reliable planting material, and possibly better. This has all still to be proven and in that context it is interesting to note that a number of the companies detailed herein (SGB Inc, JatroSolutions Gmbh, JatroPower AG and JOil with a demonstration farm already under development in Burkina Faso) are in the process of establishing industrially scaled demonstration farms to prove the proposition that emerges from the data reviewed herein, namely that Jatropha has the potential to become an important crop for 21st century agriculture.

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