And there goes another one

Jatropha curcas, once called the miracle plant seems to have made another victim in Tanzania. This time it was Sun biofuels 2000 planted ha's that will return to bush if the new owners do not take very drastic action very fast. The plantation is on the brink to deliver its first substantial harvest, but weeds are already invading the plantation were too closely planted jatropha has to be maintained at high costs.

Prokon

Prokon is a German company, active in energy production. As many of these companies, Prokon claims a sustainable business model.

Therefore the set up a Jatropha business in Tanzania, based on contract farming; 2000 farmers committed themselves to produce Jatropha for Prokon. But Prokon stops the business in Tanzania. I think we need another definition regarding sustainability.

Grow up

To help the Jatropha society out of its infancy, Jatropha seminars could be a great tool.
Could be; provided that the information provided is of high standards.
One of the first international Jatropha seminars showcased a market survey of GEXSI, prepared for WWF. (Yes, this is the same as World Wildlife Fund, but now called the World Wide Fund for Nature)
The final report was released on May 8, 2008.
The report stated that after a kick start with over 900.000 ha of Jatropha in 2008, the world would see 12.8 million ha’s in 2015. Since we are almost in the middle of that period, you would expect that we could find at least 6 million ha today.
Unfortunately, after a personal survey with lots of calls, e-mails and personal knowledge I conclude that the very very maximum of planted Jatropha lies between 500.000 and 1 million ha.
It took a lot of money and effort to put the Gexsi study together. By my knowledge there has never been an update. That is the funny thing about those seminars. Once presented, most of the stories end. The organizer does not want the presentations to be published (personal experience)
So here is my proposal for al those delegates and presenters going to the next seminar Insist that what you are presenting is your intellectual property and demand he right to publish it anywhere where you want it to be published. For the sake of a professional Jatropha community .
Welcome on my site.:>)=

Food versus Fuel

Since crude oil prices plunged, investers in alternative oil sources like Jatropha are becoming very nervous, because the short term profitability of their investments is depending on high crude oil prices.They probably feel more relieved since the UK based company D1oils recently announced a breaktrough in the search for non toxic seedcake or what they call seedcake without "non "nutrient "elements. The idea is to use the seedcake for animal feed. Gone are the nice stories about fertilizer value of the same seedcake. Further on D1oils embraced a report commissioned to Ecofys regarding the GHG caracteristics of Jatropha in India. Very very good. Not very smart however. Guys, when you sell your nutrient rich seed cake as chicken feed you will have to compensate the loss of nutrients in your Jatropha plantation. With what? Chicken dung? Who is going to pay for that? With fertilizer? Bye bye GHG balance.

I wrote this more than a year ago. In the mean time the science part of D1oils (D1plantscience) became Quinvita. But what about the GHG balance?