Jatropha curcas is a hardy shrub well-adapted to African conditions and long used in many parts as a live fence against erosion and desertification . It is easy to grow, low-maintenance and drought-resistant. It has received renewed global interest in recent years as a source of biodiesel from the oil in its beans. The oil is easily extracted even with simple machinery and the residue has several uses, including as a natural fertilizer. The oil can also easily be made into soap and candles, but the new interest in jatropha is for its biodiesel potential. It yields more than four times as much fuel per hectare as soybean.
African countries dependent on fuel imports have in recent years joined the global interest in finding ways of reducing their oil-dependency. Particularly in Western countries, there is the additional environmental interest in switching to fuels that are cleaner-burning than those derived from fossil fuels, creating hopes that there could also be an export market for those able to produce sufficient quantities of jatropha oil. Jatropha oil burns with just 20% of the emissions of conventional fossil fuel.
Its adaptability to African conditions, ease of cultivation and its biodiesel potential have all helped to create a storm of interest in Africa in commercially growing the humble-looking shrub. Among the many African countries that have private as well as government-led programmes to grow large hectarages of jatropha are Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Private out grower schemes as well as large plantations are going up, with local and foreign investors seemingly equally excited by the jatropha rush. Several countries have seed and seedling give-away programmes to encourage even poor farmers to get in on the act.
Yet despite the excitement and all the energy and investment being put into it, it remains largely unproven whether jatropha will be the miracle seed that will lift farmers out of poverty and give Africa's struggling economies either a measure of energy independence or generate significant hard currency earnings. The interest in the large-scale cultivation of jatropha is so new that there are few if any large plantations that have reached seed-bearing maturity.
Also not yet clear is how much attention is being concurrently paid to issues of seed collection, transportation to processing centers and the development of the processing infrastructure itself. It can be expected that many of the difficulties in the marketing of other crops in Africa, such as poor road networks, may conspire to remove some of the shine on the expected miracle promise of jatropha.
The answers to important factors such as optimal yields under the various conditions in which it is being grown, market prices, break-even points and many others that will determine whether it is a worthwhile venture for farmers will in many places only begin to become clear in the next few years. Despite the familiarity of the crop in many African countries, it is now being grown on a vastly different scale and for a different purpose than before, leaving many unknowns that will only be cleared up with time and experience.
The large-scale cultivation of jatropha for oil extraction in many parts of Africa is a significant new agricultural phenomenon that bears watching for the many interesting lessons that will emerge from it.
Chido Makunike
African Agriculture
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