View Points About BioDiesel / Jatropha

Background : India is the second most populous country of the world and meeting its energy requirements in a sustainable manner continues to be a major challenge. India produces only about 30% of its annual crude oil requirement of 105 MT, relying on imports to the tune of Rs. 90,000 crores for meeting the remaining requirement.
Needless to say, the oil import bill has serious consequences for the Indian economy. In this scenario, giving biofuels a serious consideration as potential energy sources of the future is the most logical step. Already, in the developed countries of the world, such as the US, Australia, Germany and France, biodiesel is being extracted from plants like saffola, sunflower, soyabean, etc, which are essentially edible in India. Our country also provides favourable climatic conditions to harbour a vast resource of non-edible or wild-seed crops like Jatropha curcas (Ratanjot), Pongamia pinnata (Karanj) and Madhuca indica (Mahua). From the seeds of these species oil can be derived and developed as biodiesel depending on site-specific requirements. But commercial cultivation of these plants specifically for this use is yet to begin.
The backdrop for brain storming on the agenda of biofuels has rightly been provided by the 10th Five-year Plan Document of the Government of India that views biofuels from the multi dimensional perspective of depleting fossil fuel resources, environmental health, National energy security and rural employment avenues.
The document proposes to cultivate Jatropha on 5 million hecters of degraded waste lands of the country. Over 200 districts in 19 potential States of the country have been identified on the basis of waste lands availability, rural poverty ratio and agro climatic conditions for taking up Jatropha cultivation.
A consultation workshop held at the Indian Institute of Science (IIS), Bangalore on 30 November 2002 set the ball rolling by initiating brain storming over the potential of biofuels among multiple stake holders. The deliberations of this consultation fed into the Draft National Biofuel Policy (SUTRA 2003) prepared for the All India Seminar on National Policy for Non-Edible Oils as Biofuels, held at the IIS during 1-2 February 2003. The draft policy rightly identifies the following key issues to justify the need to promote biofuels and to have a National Policy in this regard:

1. There is a long-standing need to increase India's self-sufficiency in oil for both fuel security and for reducing the country's oil import bill that cost us Rs. 96,000 crore in the year 2000.

2. It is high time to harness the potential offered by biofuels extracted from non edible oilseeds, such as Jatropha curcas and Pongamia pinnata.

3. Biofuel development venture can be decentralised and small industries can be located even in the rural areas, thus, increasing opportunities for rural income generation and employment.

4. With over 65% of the country's agriculture-dependent population residing in villages, there is vast potential for utilising the non edible oilseeds. cake (left after oil extraction) as organic manure cum insecticide.

5. Biofuels are free from the environmental concerns haunting fossil fuel combustion as they do not pollute the air. Rather, the biofuel producing plants sequester carbon from the atmosphere. That biofuel is an instrument of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and will add a feather to India's cap, the country being a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol.

Focusing on one of the potential biodiesel yielding plants, i.e., Jatropha curcas here, it is a wild growing hardy plant well adapted to harsh conditions of soil and climate. It is adapted to a wide range of climates and soils and can grow on almost any type of soil, even on the poorest stony soils and rock crevices. Its water requirement is extremely low and it can withstand long periods of drought by shedding most of its leaves to reduce transpiration losses. It is easily propagated by seeds or cuttings and grows rapidly. It may be cut or lopped at any desired height and is suited as a hedge plant. In India, J. curcas is found in almost all the states and is generally grown as a live fence for protection of agricultural fields. The beans of Jatropha contain viscous, non-edible oil, which can be used for the production of high quality soap, as a raw material for cosmetic products, as fuel for cooking and lighting and as a substitute for diesel fuel. The soap manufacturing units in the country have been looking for an alternative to edible oil for the manufacture of soap, for the last 7-8 years. J. curcas seeds possess about 35% non-edible oil; they thus potentially provide the answer to overcome the scarcity of raw material needed for the cosmetics manufacturing units.
The Government now proposes to take up the biofuel development program mainly in degraded areas of the country that almost invariably coincide with areas of abject poverty. As a result of this programme, it is estimated that around 50% of the wages in cash (i.e., Rs. 46,650 million) and rest in the form of food grains would trickle down to the poor.
Land Options for Jatropha Cultivation : India has approximately 329 million hecters of land area of which the estimated land available and suitable for tree growing and where trees do not exist is estimated to be around 84 million hecters (Chambers et al. 1989) (Table 1).
Cultivated lands, farm bunds and boundaries considered in the Table 1 above, that are almost entirely privately owned, are probably the ones least accessible for Jatropha cultivation. Much of this land is owned by large farmers who have the resources to intensively cultivate their farmlands. As such, unless they perceive significant economic gains in planting Jatropha, it would be practically impossible for them to alter the land use pattern. Studies indicate that such a diversion of land use tends to displace labour and substitute male for female employment (ILO 1988, Malmer 1987, FAO 1988). This leaves the farm bunds and boundaries of both categories of farmers to be targeted for planting Jatropha as that would supplement the existing livelihood strategy of the farmers.
The degraded forest lands provide potential sites for promoting Jatropha cultivation by dovetailing the Biofuel promotion initiative with the existing JFM program. Of the 5 million hecters of degraded waste lands that the National Mission on Jatropha plans to cover during the 10th plan period, 2 million hecters would be degraded forest land to be revegetated by involving Joint Forest Management Committees and Social Forestry Programs (Economic Times 2002).
Also, the currently available non-forest lands to the tune of 48 million hecters (Table 1) can be targeted for Jatropha cultivation. The planting area available on farm bunds and along railway tracks, canals and rivers would require lesser investments in terms of inputs for increasing productivity as they generally have good moisture and are more productive than revenue waste lands.
Even if we target about 10% of the 84 million hecters area (Table 1) available for tree planting in the country for Jatropha plantation (as discrete trees, tree rows, block plantations, fencing and boundaries, etc.) we can look forward to cover around 8.4 million hecters area, as shown in Table 2.
Plausible Crop Combinations and Systems for Jatropha Cultivation : According to the topography, soil profile and prevailing agro climatic conditions in an area, Jatropha can be combined with other suitable species comprising the agricultural, horticultural, pastoral and/or silvicultural components to result in an ecologically viable, economically profitable and socially acceptable agro forestry system. By evolving, promoting and adopting Jatropha based agro forestry systems it is possible to improve the socioeconomic conditions in rural areas and to transform the National energy scenario and the ecological landscape. Some of the plausible crop combinations for both waste lands and cultivable lands are discussed below.
Wastelands : Jatropha can be grown successfully in most categories of culturable waste lands except water logged lands and marshes and deserts, and the potential crop combinations for these areas are as discussed below.
Unutilised / Partially Utilised / Mismanaged Wastelands : Such waste lands include ravines and undulating uplands.

1. Ravines: Around 4 million hecters of waste lands in the country are categorised as gullies and ravines. In the ravine areas, Jatropha can be intercropped with medicinal plants like Asparagus racemosus (Shatawar) and Commiphora mukul (Gugul) at 2ft X 2ft spacing to serve the additional twin causes of ex situ conservation of medicinal plants and ravine area reclamation (Bhattacharya and Bhagat 2002). Also, the medicinal plants so produced can be used to meet the traditional health care needs of the local community. Another potential crop for such areas is Evolvulus alsinoides (Shankhpushpi) that is abundant in waste lands. Allelopathic studies have revealed that extracts and leachates of the whole herb of Shankhpushpi are effective in promoting the growth of Jatropha curcas and also hasten germination and initial seedling vigour (Oudhia 2001).

2. Undulating uplands : For slope stabilisation and improving soil productivity on undulating uplands, Jatropha can be combined with various grass and tree species resulting in the following models:
   Model (i) Contour Hedgerows of Jatropha with Glyricidia and Subabul : The contour hedgerow farming technology is based on a modification of the agro forestry system in which Nitrogen-fixing hedgerow species are planted along the contours with desired food crops and other useful species in the alleys. In the middle and lower slopes, Glyricidia and Leucaena leucocephala (for fodder) can be planted along the contours with Jatropha in the alleys.
   Model (ii) Jatropha intercropped with grasses, tubers and vegetables : On the denuded hill slopes, Jatropha can also be combined with grasses and legumes like Andropogon, Stylosanthes hamata, Guinea, Hybrid Napier, Brachiara humidicola, Congo signal (that help consolidate the soil), tuber crops like Manihot esculenta (Cassava) and Tapioca; and vegetables like Pumpkin and Moringa (5m X 5m) plantation.
   Various conservation structures like field trench-bunds, broad-based trenches and loose boulder plugs can also be combined with the models given above for effective soil erosion control and for improving soil productivity.

Wastelands based on Ecological Limitations : These can be categorised as shifting cultivation areas, degraded pastures / grazing lands, mining spoils and degraded forestlands.

1. Shifting Cultivation Areas In India : It is estimated that around 11 million hecters area is under shifting cultivation and this system is still an important source of livelihood for around 2 million tribals in the high rainfall regions. Paddy is the predominant crop in these lands; oilseeds are cultivated in the first year and paddy and millets in the second year in medium rainfall areas. In the low rainfall regions, paddy is never preferred; instead, varieties of millets are sown side by side with vegetable pulses. Depending on the local requirements for agricultural crops, fodder and fruits, the following Jatropha-based agro forestry combinations can be adopted, especially in the mid- and foot hills:
   Model (i) Jatropha mixed with fruit trees : Common edible fruit yielding trees having local preference and market demand, like mango, Aonla, cashew-nut, guava, sapota and pineapple can be planted at 4m X 4m spacing and interplanted at different storeys with Jatropha at 1m X 1m.
   Model (ii) Jatropha in mixed plantation with Teak / Neem / Karanj / Subabul : Teak (Tectona grandis), Neem (Azadirachta indica), Karanj (Pongamia pinnata) and Jatropha can be planted as a mixed plantation at the spacement of 4m X 4m, in alternate rows. Within the interspace, subabul (Leucaena leucocephala) can be planted at 1m X 1m. Subabul trees would yield fodder and fuel wood and also fix nitrogen; Neem and Karanj yield non-edible but commercially important oil. Thus, the overall plantation mixture is capable of combining soil improvement and erosion control benefits with long-term economic gains.
   Model (iii) Jatropha mixed with fodder trees and grasses : In order to ensure regular fodder supply for cattle from indigenous species and for erecting vegetative barriers to conserve soil, various species of grasses and fodder trees can be planted at 4m X 4m spacing and interplanted with Jatropha at the spacement of 1m X 1m. The potential grass species are Andropogon, Dinanath, Guinea, Hybrid Napier, Congo signal, Stylosanthes hamata and Vetiveria zizanioides.

2. Degraded Pastures / Grazing Lands : For rehabilitation of degraded pastures, a suitable silvipastoral system would consist of various species of grasses and fodder trees (like Leucaena leucocephala and Khejri) can be planted at 4m X 4m spacing and interplanted with Jatropha at the spacement of 1m X 1m. The potential grass species are Andropogon, Guinea, Hybrid Napier, Congo signal, Stylosanthes hamata and Vetiveria zizanioides. Alternatively, Jatropha can be planted only on the bunds / bund-cum-trench combination with other non-browsable plants like Agave sp., Prosopis juliflora, etc. acting as effective biofences.

3. Mined out Areas and Overburden Dumps : In India, it is estimated that around 6,83,671 hecters is under mining leases in 19 States, specially in Rajasthan, Bihar and Orissa. Jatropha presents itself as a potential crop for such mined area reclamation efforts. It can also be planted as part of watershed management programs, owing to its soil binding properties and capacity to gain a foothold even in a thin soil cover. In the mined out areas and over burdens, Jatropha can be cultivated with other hardy species known to grow successfully in such sites like - Pongamia pinnata (Karanj), Acacia auriculiformis, Prosopis juliflora, Gravillea robusta (Silver Oak) and Cassia siamea.

4. Degraded Forestlands : In highly degraded forest lands and other plain areas, Jatropha can be grown as a pure block plantation or with Nyctanthes arbortristis (Harsingar), Azadirachta indica (Neem) and Vitex negundo (Nirgudi). Earlier it was believed that Jatropha could be grown in closer spacing of 2m X 2m, but this resulted in mutual shading and consequent reduction in yield when the plants matured. Therefore, a wider spacing of 3m X 3m is suggested (BAIF 2003, ICFRE, undated).

Farm lands : While targeting private farmlands and bunds for plantation of Jatropha or any other nationally relevant species, it must be kept in mind that people's choice of species for planting is paramount. The plausible Jatropha based agroforestry combinations in these areas have been discussed below.
On irrigated farmlands : In plain areas with good soil depth, receiving optimum rainfall and with facilities of irrigation, Jatropha can be planted as a block plantation at a spacement of 2.5m X 2.5m, mixed with one or more of the following species, grown at the spacing indicated against each species:

1. Gmelina arborea (Gamhar) 8mX8m
2. Dalbergia sissoo (Sheesham) 5m X 4m
3. Azadirachta indica (Neem) 7m X 5m
4. Tectona grandis (Teak) 4m X 4m
5. Emblica officinalis (Aonla) 5m X 3m
6. Eucalyptus camaldulensis 3.5m X 2m
7. Moringa oleifera (Munga) 3m X 3m

This would be a purely commercial model, aimed at yielding economic returns higher than the previous land-use.
On drier farm lands : On primarily rain fed farm lands with poorer soil depth and productivity and located in areas receiving less than 200 mm annual rainfall, interplanting of Jatropha can be done with Mulberry (Morus alba) at 2m X 2m spacing in alternate rows. The foliage of mulberry trees can be used for rearing silkworms, providing an additional source of income to the farmers.
Another alternative for such areas is interplanting of Jatropha with Ber (Zizyphus sp.) at 2m X 2m spacing in alternate rows. Ber trees are hardy, yield fruits which are locally consumed and marketed and are also popular hosts for Lac cultivation. Combined with the petroplant Jatropha, Ber and Lac constitute a profitable planting model.
Other Potential Areas : There is great potential for promoting Jatropha plantation along railway tracks and canal-banks, on roadsides, and also on farm bunds. The potential crop combinations for these areas have been discussed below.
Jatropha for Boundary and Roadside Plantations : Often the Jatropha plant is used to demarcate boundaries, because the plant is not browsed by animals and has a long life. In combination with other useful, oil yielding trees like Madhuca indica (Mahua), Pongamia pinnata (Karanj) and Azadirachta indica (Neem), Jatropha can be planted along railway lines, on roadsides and canal banks, at 5 m spacing. It is also possible to plant double rows of these plants with 1.5 m inter-row spacing, in the fashion of wind breaks or shelter-belts, specially in areas experiencing high velocity winds, to protect agricultural crops and the fertile top soil from wind inflicted damage and erosion, respectively.
Because of its drought tolerance and its lateral roots near the surface the Jatropha plant is often used for anti erosion measures. This may be either in the form of plantation together with other species, or in the form of hedges to reduce wind speed and protect small earth dams or stone walls against runoff water. Together with Vetiver and Lemon grass, the Jatropha hedges can build up an effective filtering system that reduces the erosion of surface soil by runoff water. After only a short time terraces are formed.
Jatropha for Biofencing : Jatropha is popular among farmers in the States of Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh as a live fence for protecting homesteads, orchards and farms, as it is non-browseable and has a long life. Biofences of Jatropha can supply seeds and provide other economic and ecological benefits to the farmers. When planted in the trench-cum-bund combinations, Jatropha can prove to be an effective defence against cattle and other trespassers, specially in case of < 5-year-old plantations. Jatropha can be planted in combination with the following species suitable for biofencing and capable of yielding other direct and indirect benefits to the farmers:

1. Agave sisalana (for rope fiber + protection)
2. Euphorbia sp. (for protection)
3. Erythrina indica (for plant-based dye + protection)
4. Ipomoea sp. (for boundary)
5. Prosopis juliflora (for protection + fuelwood + charcoal)
6. Glyricidia (for boundary + Glyricidia as a Nitrogen fixing fodder species)

Institutional Options for Jatropha Promotion : There is ample scope and even necessity for involving diverse institutions in various stages of Jatropha production, promotion and rural livelihoods development. The list below helps us to identify the main kinds of institutions that can be involved in Jatropha production, promotion and rural livelihoods, development:

1. Community-level Institutions
2. Non Governmental Rural Development Organisations (NGOs)
3. Technical Institutes, Academic Institutions and Universities
4. Government Organisations/Departments
5. Banks and other Micro-finance Institutions
6. Planners and Policy-makers.

The potential roles and responsibilities of these different types of organisations have been discussed below.
Community-Level Institutions : Unlike the traditional oil sector that involves huge investments and complicated institutional arrangements, development of biofuel from non-edible oilseeds of plants can be completely decentralised, with raw material (i.e. seed) production and processing done entirely by community based small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs). The existing institutions can be involved after adequate capacity enhancement and within the framework of a well-developed strategy, to establish Jatropha plantations, to extract and process its oil and form biodiesel and to market it.
The community level institutions that can be plausible and worthy candidates to perform these tasks include Community Forestry Groups, Self Help Groups, Panchayats and Minor Forest Produce Societies, to name a few. The strengths of these groups and their suitability for taking up the biodiesel production challenge have been discussed below.
Community Forestry Groups : These groups can be State-promoted or self-initiated. In the former category, presently there are more than 65,000 Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs) in over 40,000 villages of the country, protecting over 15 million hecters of Government owned forests (Bhattacharya and Prasad 2001). Apart from these, there are several instances of self-initiated forest protection groups (SIFPGs) and conservation efforts by local communities in different parts of the country, viz. Orissa, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and from the Northeast. The JFMCs as well as the SIFPGs represent the right institutions to be supported, trained and promoted for taking up the following activities related to Jatropha-based biodiesel development:

1. Development of Jatropha planting stock in decentralised nurseries
2. Plantation of Jatropha on private and common lands
3. Scientific harvest of Jatropha seeds
4. Local processing of Jatropha.

Self Help Groups : Starting in the 1980s due to the path breaking efforts of a few NGOs, State Governments and banks, including National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), the Self Help Group (SHG) movement has taken firm roots in many parts of the country.
Though a detailed analysis of the strengths of an SHG-based rural development approach is beyond the mandate of this paper, it can be safely said that SHGs can be recognised as a socially viable unit for implementation of Jatropha based biodesel development programme. The potential roles that the SHGs can perform in such a program are as follows:

1. Development of Jatropha planting stock in individual / group nurseries
2. Providing microcredit services to interested members for establishing Jatropha-based SME
3. Establishing small processing units for Jatropha seed-oil extraction
4. Constructing and renting out Jatropha seed storage facilities
5. Local marketing of Jatropha oil and seed-cake through Federations.

Panchayats : Today, Panchayat as a rural local government institution in India forms a permanent part of the structure of governance of the country. The potential role of Panchayats in establishment of successful Jatropha production and utilisation systems is as follows:

1. Provide funds and logistics for establishment of decentralised Jatropha nurseries
2. Devote common lands under their control to Jatropha cultivation
3. Ensure equitable benefit sharing from Jatropha-based SMEs
4. Invest in establishment and maintenance of Jatropha processing units at Block and District levels
5. Facilitate marketing and distribution of Jatropha-based biodiesel.

Minor Forest Produce Societies : The NTFP collection and marketing chain of formally recognised institutions like State Minor Forest Produce Federation along with their district level and village level units can provide a ready-made community organisation and marketing channel for Jatropha seeds as well as oil. Moving a step further, this arrangement can also bring more benefits to the Jatropha entrepreneurs if the example of Madhya Pradesh (MP), the first State of the country to decide upon the transfer of NTFP ownership to the Gram Sabhas, the local level PRIs, is emulated.
Tribal Co-operative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) can also play an important role in procurement and sale of Jatropha seeds and oil with a view to pay remunerative prices to the tribal cultivators, on the basis of correct weighment and premium on quality.
The co-operative federation model can be replicated for promoting Jatropha-based SME development in rural areas especially in the forested zones of the country. It has to be kept in mind that local processing of Jatropha seeds for oil extraction would be a necessary complement to local farming, if we want the communities to take advantage of the emerging biodiesel market and put more money in their pockets. Thus, decentralising the production of Jatropha seeds as well as oil is strongly suggested.
Development of local processing capacity will invariably reduce Jatropha seed storage and transportation costs and allows better and profitable conversion. Also, there would be more effective utilisation of by-products like the Jatropha seed-cake and this internal circulation will also retain margins within the community. The formation of the following institutions can be envisaged.

1. Jatropha primary societies at the village or cluster levels. This would grow and collect Jatropha seeds and market the seed-cakes

2. Jatropha District Unions at the District level, that would process the seeds to extract oil, modify it to form biodiesel and supply back the seed-cakes to primary societies for marketing

3. Jatropha Federations at the State level, for packaging and marketing of Jatropha-based biodiesel at the National and International level

4. A National Mission on Jatropha to facilitate research, technology development and transfer, production, promotion and export of Jatropha-based biodiesel.

Non Governmental Rural Development Organisations : The non-governmental rural development organisations or NGOs are increasingly playing an important role in the delivery of various developmental services in different parts of the world, and India is no exception. It is envisaged that the rural development organisations can be entrusted with the following roles in the Jatropha-based diesel promotion programme in the country :

1. Community organisation into SHGs and other village level organisations, and strengthening of existing institutions.

2. Mass mobilisation of communities for taking up Jatropha cultivation.

3. Linking the community institutions with Jatropha-related developmental programmes of other agencies.

4. Providing hand-holding support to Jatropha nursery growers (e.g., women groups) and cultivators.

5. Creating awareness of the importance of microcredit within the Jatropha growers and local processing groups.

6. Functioning as a financial intermediary to make low-cost and risk loans available to Jatropha-entrepreneurs through leveraged bank-NGO-client credit lines.

7. Providing micro enterprise development support to the community for Jatropha based SME development in rural areas.

8. Making marketing information accessible to Jatropha growers and rural biodiesel manufacturers.

Technical Institutes, Academic Institutions and Universities : There is tremendous scope for involving technical and academic institutions of the country for meeting the software requirements with regard to Jatropha cultivation, management, processing, packaging and marketing. The specific areas where interventions from these organisations would be most needed include:

1. Research and technology development for Jatropha cultivation and its management as an agroforestry crop.

2. Mass mobilisation and extension / dissemination of cultivation packages among rural communities.

3. Research for development of other innovative products from Jatropha.

4. Development of alternative and appropriate technology for maximising Jatropha oil yield / expression.

5. Developing basic financial management and entrepreneurial skills and demand orientation among Jatropha SME owners in rural areas.

6. Imparting skills to the rural youth in networking for accessing market information and increasing their ability to identify opportunities for product diversification.

7. Increasing the rural entrepreneurs that ability to understand and address quality requirements in the oil industry.

In the above context, the agriculture and forestry departments of various Indian Universities, the Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun and Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) Bhopal can play a key role for strengthening the biological production process of Jatropha-based biodiesel. Technical institutes like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Technical Institutes (ITIs) can help in various stages of machinery and technology development. They can also support establishment of decentralised workshops for maintenance and repair of oil extraction machinery and equipment. Management development institutions like the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) in Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Quality Management (IIQM), Jaipur and the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development in Madhya Pradesh (CEDMAP) can play a crucial role in various aspects human resource development in rural areas.
Government Organisations / Departments : The role of the Government in promoting Jatropha fuelled rural development cannot be over emphasised. The departments envisioned to perform key roles in this respect include those looking after Agriculture and Watershed Development, Forest, Revenue, Panchayats and Rural Development, Women and Child Development, Employment and Training and Small Scale Industries. The ubiquitous presence, network expanse, fund availability, philanthropic outlook and ability to work at a larger scale are the unique properties with which the Government Departments and Agencies are bestowed.
The intrinsic strengths of Government institutions can be put to use effectively and meticulously for promoting Jatropha cultivation, processing and marketing, as mentioned below:

1. Revenue and Forest Departments can estimate and allocate vacant and waste lands under their ownership for Jatropha cultivation.

2. The Departments related to Panchayat, Tribal Welfare, Rural Development and Women and Child Development can promote the involvement of the poor and the socio economically marginalised sections of the society in Jatropha based income generation ventures by planning for priority establishment of such SMEs in needy areas. These Departments should also take up the responsibility of ensuring equitable distribution of benefits from Jatropha based SMEs in rural areas.

3. The Departments concerned with Rural Employment and Training should focus on building capacities of the rural youth to take advantage of the Jatropha promotion wave, establish Jatropha based SMEs and earn profits in a sustainable manner. Sincere efforts should be made for linking the rural entrepreneurs, individuals as well as groups with knowledge networks and management and technical institutions.

4. Several resource-specific marketing and trade agencies like the State MFP Federations, TRIFED, State Forest Development Agencies and Large Area Multi-purpose Societies (LAMPs) have already been established in different parts of the country. Functioning in a well-co-ordinated manner, these agencies can assist the rural people to produce and market the Jatropha seeds and oil produced by them in National markets at remunerative prices. They can organise State and National level Jatropha (seed and oil)- buyer-seller meets and regularly publish a Directory of these buyers and sellers.

Banks and Non-Banking Financial Institutions (NBFIs) : The informal financial sources generally include funds available from family sources or local moneylenders. The prohibitive cost of loans disbursed by the local money lenders and increasing incidences of misappropriation of funds by Chit Funds and Bishis diminish the suitability of these credit options for any organised Jatropha cultivation and processing venture. Lately, few of the NGOs have also initiated savings and credit programs for their target groups, under the community based financial systems (CBFS) approach.
The formal sources of finance can be further categorised as Banks and the Non Banking Financial Institutions (NBFIs). Traditionally, the formal sector Banking Institutions in India have been serving only the needs of the commercial sector and providing loans for middle and upper income groups. The Government has taken several initiatives to strengthen the institutional rural credit system. Apart from commercial banks, the other front runner banks engaged in disbursing credit in rural areas include NABARD, Rural Development Banks (RDBs), Land Development Banks and Co-operative Banks (CBs).
Today, there are around 250-300 Indian NGOs engaged in micro-finance, each with 50-100 Self Help Groups (SHG) and around 20-30 NGOs have started forming SHG Federations. The Jatropha entrepreneurs can target microfinance wholesalers like NABARD, Rashtriya Mahila Kosh-New Delhi and the Friends of Women's World Banking in Ahmedabad. They should benefit from loans offered under various schemes by public sector banks as well as NBFIs as in spite of a change in the legislation and attitude of banks, they still cannot sufficiently meet the demand for rural credit to start micro-enterprise.
Planners and Policy-Makers : Capitalising on the mandate provided by the 10th Plan document regarding Jatropha based promotion, as also the insights provided by the draft Biofuel policy would not be possible unless the field level interventions are well planned and are supported by an enabling policy environment. Favourable programme framework and policy environment would be required not only with reference to energy, but also in case of policies affecting land (forest, revenue and the commons), microcredit and microfinance, training and education of rural entrepreneurs. The overall thrust should be on:

1. Making Jatropha cultivation a low-risk venture with attractive returns.

2. Providing Jatropha-cultivators and SME owners with a lobbying power to influence legislation and services provided by identified institutions.

3. Promoting and recognising endeavours to build technical capacities of rural entrepreneurs.

4. Evolving a pricing and promotional strategy that would make biodiesel an attractive choice for the energy consumers.

On the basis of the above discussion, we can identify the following types of materials / resources (or the hardware), technical knowledge plus skills (or the software) and other support that would be required for achieving the National goals as mentioned in the draft Bio-fuel Policy:

(i) Ensured availability of hardware, i.e.,

1. High quality planting material of Jatropha and other cultivation inputs.

2. Affordable and alternative technology for harvest and post-harvest storage.

3. Processing and packaging technology for both seeds and oil.

(ii) Adequate provision of finance, i.e.,

1. Microfinance for villagers to take up Jatropha cultivation (includes funds for nursery development).

2. Low-cost loans for oil extraction in small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs).

3. Fund availability for packaging, marketing and promotion of Jatrophabased products.

4. Funds for research and technology development in Jatropha

(iii) Continued guidance and support for accessing software, i.e.,

1. Technical knowledge and skills in Jatropha cultivation and scientific harvest of seeds.

2. Technical knowledge of operating and maintaining oil extraction machinery.

3. Entrepreneurial skills and demand orientation for SME owners.

4. Ability to understand and address quality standards required by the oil industry.

5. Confidence and attitude to approach buyers for Jatropha oil and other byproducts.

6. Basic knowledge of marketing concepts.

7. Skills to network for accessing market information and ability to identify opportunities for product diversification.

(iv) Facilitating policy environment, i.e.,

1. Co-ordination and co-operation between various Government institutions, non profit organisations and private players under the umbrella of an All India Co-ordinated Project on Jatropha.

2. Jatropha-specific lending schemes for supporting investment in its cultivation by communities.

3. Tax relaxation, low-cost loan provision and other financial incentives for promoting Jatropha-based SME development.

4. Providing subsidy for popularisation of Jatropha-derived biodiesel and for making it a cheaper alternative to normal diesel.

Conclusion : Jatropha curcas holds immense untapped opportunities for farmers and rural entrepreneurs to make money and for the populace to replace diesel with home grown, environmental friendly biodiesel. The biodiesel revolution would go a long way in reducing the oil import bill of the country as more and more people substitute the fossil fuels with non-edible oil from plants like Jatropha to meet their household and commercial energy needs. Sufficient land is available for cultivating Jatropha to meet the 5 million hecters target as set in the 10th plan document, the challenge would be to suitably allocate and efficiently utilise this land.
Studies are required that would focus as much on yield as on performance of biodiesel, and need to be properly documented. The main challenge of Jatropha promotion in rural areas would come from the communities for whom the scope of petro crop adoption would need to be attractively and profitably packaged along with a demystified plantation and processing technology. Site specific cultivation packages and agro forestry models for Jatropha would need to be developed and mass mobilisation / awareness campaigns designed and implemented to institutionalise the process and to achieve the desired scale of Jatropha plantation in the country.
Appropriate strategies and policies would be needed to strengthen Jatropha-based rural livelihoods as they are in tune with the countrywide trend towards diversification of rural economy. Jatropha-based SMEs may consist of non-traditional activities, but unlike many traditional village industries that constituted only secondary and supplementary occupations, these activities can also be promoted and supported as main occupations to meet the country's energy and employment needs.
Sincere and result-oriented efforts involving all stake holders in various stages of the planning process as well as implementation would be necessary to achieve the results listed above.
References :

1. BAIF, 2003. Jatropha Revisited, www.baif.com/MptsMar2003_JR.htm.

2. Bhattacharya P and Bhagat N K B, 2002. Interim Report of the Project on Science & Technology Application for Enhancement of Rural Livelihood: Community based Chambal Ravine Reclamation through Sustainable Management and Cultivation of Asparagus, sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology (Government of India), IIFM, Bhopal (unpublished).

3. Bhattacharya P and Ram Prasad, 2001. Integrated Options for Forest Management in India, In: Victor M. and A. Barash (2001),

4. Overview of an International Seminar on Cultivating Forests : Alternative Forest Management Practices and Techniques for Community Forestry, held during 23-25 September 1998, RECOFTC Report No. 17, Bangkok, Thailand.

5. Chambers R, Saxena N C and Shah T, 1989. To the Hands of the Poor - Water and Trees, Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.

6. Economic Times, 2002. Government Plans Rs. 17,500 Crores Investment in Biodiesel, Economic Times, Tuesday, December 10, 2002 (online edition).

7. FAO, 1988. Case studies of Farm Forestry and Wasteland Development in Gujarat, FAO, Bangkok (mimeo).

8. ICFRE, (undated) Jatropha curcas, FRI, Dehradun.

9. ILO, 1988. Employment and Income Generation through Social Forestry in India: Review of Issues and Evidence, ILO, Asian Employment Programme (ARTEP), New Delhi.

10. Malmer P, 1987. Socioeconomic Change in Social Forestry, A Case study of Kovilur village, Tamil Nadu, India, The Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Department of Economics & Statistics, Uppsala.

11. Oudhia P, 2001. Shankhpushpi - Medicinal Herbs of Chhattisgarh, India, Having Unknown Traditional Uses XXVII on website www.botanical.com/site/column_poudhia/193_evolvulus.html.

12. SUTRA, 2003. Draft National Bio-Fuel Policy, prepared for the All India Seminar on National Policy on Non-Edible Oils as Biofuels, held during 1-2 February 2003, at IISC, Bangalore.

D1 Oils, the Aim-listed company which has a joint venture with BP to turn jatropha plants into bio­fuels, will look to raise up to £30m in fresh capital.
The business, which saw its shares slump 37 per cent on Friday, is understood to be seeking the additional funding and is sounding out potential investors.
It is believed that house broker Dresdner Kleinwort would have a role in raising the cash. In a note issued on Friday, the broker suggested funding is an issue that would need to be addressed.
It said: "As at year-end 2007, we estimate D1 had a net cash position of £15m. By year-end 2008, we forecast this to have fallen to £1m of net cash - i.e. there appears to be no imminent concern on liquidity. External funding does, however, appear a likely requirement in 2009, based on our forecasts."
News that D1 may try to tap the market for more money comes just days after the company said it may need to cut up to 35 per cent of its workforce because subsidised US imports are hitting its profitability.
Elliott Mannis, chief executive, said: "Imports of heavily subsidised biodiesel from the US have eroded margins to the point where we have no choice but to consider how to reduce operating costs."
D1 has struggled over the past couple of years, unveiling a string of disappointing results. When it posted an increased interim loss of £10.3m in September, it called for EU support to protect the sector against subsidised US competition, saying its American rivals were "laughing all the way to the bank".
Friday's tumble means that D1 is now trading at an all-time low of 62p although some believe that the group's value is its intellectual property, which is related to the establishment, development and harvesting of jatropha plantations, the extraction of oil from the harvested seed and the production of biodiesel.
Some brokers have said the sharp sell-off has been overdone, with Goldman Sachs continuing to rate the stock as a buy over a two-year horizon. "We are bullish on D1 because of its exposure to the agricultural market, as it sets out to plant 1m hectares over the next four to five years, in a joint venture with BP to grow the oilseed-bearing tree jatropha," the broker explained.
"Palm oil prices - which should be directly correlated with jatropha oil prices - have doubled in the past six to nine months. Our positive stance on the agricultural sector drives our bullish stance on D1."
Dresdner also rated D1 shares as a buy in its note, giving a target price of 200p. "While D1 is currently negatively impacted by sharply rising feedstock prices, the situation is, in fact, a validation of the company's core strategy of focusing on non-edible sustainable feedstocks (such as jatropha)."
- by Yvette Essen, The Telegraph, March 9, 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/09/cnd1109.xml

Karl Watkin, the founder of biofuels pioneer, D1 Oils, today announced his departure from the company with a verbal broadside against governments, campaign groups and even the London Stock Exchange.
All had played their part, he claimed, in unfairly damaging the financial value and progress of a firm which had been feted by Bill Clinton and other world leaders for its success with turning the Jatropha plant into a sustainable transport fuel.
Around quarter of a million jobs had been created in the developing world by the D1 strategy of growing Jatropha whose importance had been recognised by companies such as BP which had recently formed a partnership with it.
"Nevertheless, over the past 12 months I have become increasingly frustrated by the inability of the investment community, governments and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) to differentiate D1's strategy from that of the suppliers of palm, soya and rapeseed whose biodiesel products have been well documented as being environmentally unsustainable."
Watkins said he was "particularly disheartened" by the large numbers of so-called experts on climate change who fail to distinguish between Jatropha and other non sustainable biodiesel feedstocks.
"This lack of differentiation, combined with the London Stock Exchange's failure to address both the liquidity problems of (its junior market) Aim and the impact of shorting of illiquid stocks, have conspired to erode the value of D1."
The decision to resign by Watkins, who once held the title of chairman now handed over to former Shell chairman Lord Oxburgh, comes just one trading day since D1 announced it was in talks on staff cutbacks at its biodiesel refineries in Britain.
The company said that 35 jobs might have to go in Middlesbrough and Bromborough and it blamed the cutbacks on cheap American subsidised imports which were wrecking the European biodiesel market. Since then there has also been speculation it needs to raise up to £30m of new cash.
"In the announcement issued by the company on Friday March 7, D1 stated that it is continuing to manage proactively its refinery assets which now represent only a small part of the overall business. The resulting 40% fall in the company's share price, particularly when set against the recent share fall, was overdone in relation to the news. As a consequence of the above, I have decided to resign as a director of D1," he added.
One of the critics that have faced the company's wrath in the past was George Monbiot, the Guardian columnist. D1 put out a statement last month in which Oxburgh described some of Monbiot's views as "absurd". - Terry Macalister , guardian.co.uk, March 10 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/mar/10/oil.biofuels

Views of BP about Jatropha : BP is in advanced talks with D1 Oils about a global joint venture that would help bolster the British energy giant's long-term biofuels pipeline. The two companies have signed a deal that will involve creating a specialist subsidiary focused on growing, refining and trading supplies of Jatropha, a plant which can be converted into fuel. It is understood that the partnership, on which talks have been progressing for almost a year, could eventually involve BP acquiring a stake in D1. The two sides will initially own an equal share of the joint venture.
A sharp rise in D1's share price - up 16½ to 216½p - forced it to issue a statement confirming that discussions with an unnamed third party "are now reaching an advanced stage" but warning that there was "no certainty that any transaction will be forthcoming". BP's appetite for a bigger foothold in biofuels underlines the ambitions of companies such as D1 which have set out to develop lucrative businesses from alternative energy sources. D1, which declined to comment, is understood to be being advised by Dresdner Kleinwort.
British Petroleum (BP) and D1 Oils are set to launch a joint venture to develop a new bio-diesel through the planting of Jatropha curcas - a plant that can grow in wastelands and can be used to develop sustainable fuels.
The two firms will invest $160 million (£79.9 million) in the venture over the next five years. A total of 1.3 million hectares will be cultivated with the plant in south-east Asia, southern Africa, central and South America and India.
Head of BP Biofuels Phil New said: "As Jatropha can be grown on land of lesser agricultural value with lower irrigation requirements than many plants, it is an excellent bio-diesel feedstock.
"D1 Oils' progress in identifying the most productive varieties of Jatropha means that the joint venture will have access to seeds which can substantially increase Jatropha oil production per hectare,' he added.
He said the joint venture aimed at producing up to two million tons of Jatropha oil a year. The joint venture is a further milestone in their strategy to develop real avenues to contribute to global energy supplies in ways that are sustainable and progressive.

Views of D1 Oil about Jatropha : British biodiesel major D1 Oil has said it has plans to expand operations in India and is looking for a suitable partner. "We want to expand our business in India," said Steve Douty, executive director of company. The company recently entered into an agreement with Mohan Breweries and Williamson Magor, The Economic Times newspaper reported. The company says it joined hands with the two private majors for Jatropha cultivation and processing. Douty is on a visit to India and has held talks with some of the country's leading oil companies.
He said the company also asked Indian oil companies to take up Jatropha cultivation and processing. "India is aiming to develop biodiesel production in a big scale that would pave the way for introduction of national level bio-diesel obligation," he said. The British major has covered 20,000 hectares of Jatropha cultivation in four southern and central Indian states in a joint venture with Mohan Breweries. It has conducted cultivation on a contract basis and has provided financial support to farmers through bank loans from two state-owned Indian banks. Douty said the company also entered into a joint venture with Williamson Magor for Jatropha cultivation in 20,000 hectares in India's east. He said the company plans to construct a refinery in southern Tamil Nadu state to process crude oil in biodiesel.
D1 Oils PLC said it has raised its cost estimates for jatropha biodiesel feedstock to US$ 575 per ton from US$ 475-500, following a study with new joint venture partner BP PLC, but added this is still very competitive compared with other feedstocks.
Chief executive Elliott Mannis told reporters on a conference call the company thinks 'it is sensible to take a slightly more prudent view on in-country logistics, or the logistic costs in the country of origin'.
'The target price for landing oil in northern Europe is probably more reasonably stated at US$ 575 per ton,' he said, adding this was still 'extraordinarily price competitive', with rapeseed currently over US$ 900 / ton and soya pushing towards that level.
Mannis was speaking after the announcement this morning of a joint venture agreement between D1 Oils and BP to invest 80 million stg over the next five years to plant 1 million hectares of jatropha for use in biofuels.
D1 is contributing its planting business to the new joint venture company, which included planted or rights of offtake from 172,241 hectares in India, Southern Africa and South East Asia. Biofuels have come under increasing scrutiny as demand for competing feedstock like corn and soya drive food prices up.
While jatropha avoids this pitfall as an inedible feedstock, there is still the issue of carbon emissions related to transporting and refining the product, which in some cases is argued to cancel out the intended benefits of using renewable fuels.
Mannis said the host countries where the jatropha is grown have the same concerns as we do, security of energy supply and reducing their carbon footprint.
He added the company does not expect to export more than 50% of the jatropha to Europe, with a substantial proportion remaining in the country for refining and distribution.

Comments on D1 BP JV by Dr. Clive Richardson, Labour Party Member, United Kingdom : I have taken some deliberate time to go over the JV document. D1 should skip the tall tail about "elite" seeds. No such magic seed exists and there are scientific as well as practical reasons for why this is so. Rapid germination and planting out extension systems using wild seed will produce harvest values that will out perform any lab developed mutant. Why ? JCL is an ancient plant, highly cross pollinated and exceptionally adaptive to harsh environments. Attention to the physical environment of the plant allows for quality productivity in regions that are experiencing a productive or conducive weather pattern. If the plant is subject to sever drought or lacks nutrient uptake the harvest will fail, just like any other plant harvest, JATROPHA CURCAS SURVIVES DROUGHT CONDITIONS IT DOES NOT PRODUCE BUMPER HARVESTS WHEN SUBJECT TO EXTREME CONDITIONS. While planting in semi-arid or semi dessert conditions has multiple value the plant thrives best when in close contact with mixed cropping activities near or on the boarders of good quality land. Mono cropping is not recommended, beans n bees are the plants best friend.
Alternative Example Proposal: Using tried and tested agricultural extension practises that deliver fully protected, live "seed derived" plants for extension; at the 6 th week period, following Germination. For a complete cost (Capital and operations) of 5 Million GBP, delivery of 360,000 hectares of extension material per annum, inclusive of the transport to rural planting destinations, free of charge to peasant farmers, is practical and possible.
This can be achieved simultaneously in several countries at one and the same time and at several locations within certain countries, sites already identified as excellent locations. (i.e for each 5 million invested a process can be established that will deliver 360,000 hectares of planting material p/a).
Given the distances and diverse locations of the above it may take up to the end of 2008 to establish programs in each selected location. However; this should not be seen as prohibitive. Each location would take no more than three years to deliver 1 million hectares of extension. By 2012 mature harvest values would be established.
The proposed initial BP expenditure of +30 million GBP could develop no less than 7 rapid agricultural extension zones over an 18 month period while the proposed balance (+40 million) would allow for the continued development of extension services for a three year period. Delivering +10 Million hectares of JCL agricultural extension by YE 2011/12.
(D1 likely does not have the funds to support the disclosed Jv, BP's executive will be aware of this. In shareholder value terms the Jv delivers nothing to BP while D1's executive capture further funds to fritter away)
A review of the company from 2004 to date illustrates that D1 has burned a substantial amount of shareholder funds without return of substance. In 2004 the essence of this Jv was proposed as the corner stone of activities to investors. The executive actually went for refinery and trading activities. They dumped the product development centre in India in April 2005 expensing consultant services in Holland until attracting a Dutch science officer late in 2006. It is simply not possible to deliver an "elite" seed by July 2007 and in any case what is the value of an elite seed variety? Jatropha Curcas is a tree/shrub not an annual planting material, the wild variety simply requires improved physical management in order to deliver excellent harvests; in addition the free flow of seeds between countries and continents requires a value adding process before becoming practical. D1's executive have rejected such a value added agricultural extension system, consistently since early 2005......... The hectares of Jatropha Curcas plantings mentioned by D1 as held property, leasehold or otherwise are misleading.
NB: Given the declared holdings from 2006 the company would have had to have purchased +1000 Tonnes of seed (this harvest period ) for crushing or replanting. no such purchases have been made. This is sufficient planting material for 333,000 hectares of Jatropha Curcas Linn. Cost at farm gate for the seed £120,000 GBP. Fund raising in 2005/6 would suggest that this would not require a Jv of the nature or magnitude disclosed.
The alternative process proposed above would lead to the development of strong internal markets for JCL seed, stimulating additional extension; substantially more than the +1 Million hectares to be sponsored by BP with D1.
Secure access to harvests:
EBT Economic model delivers Jatropha Curcas seed oil as the bi-product of bio-organic processes that are possessed of an independent profit statement, sufficiently healthy to afford the purchase of seed harvest values exclusive of any consideration for the oil content.
Any company/organisation that begins its economic analysis of Jatropha Curcas harvests by leveraging the values of the harvest against prevailing cost of transport fuel is already considering the route to bankruptcy. The absents of a holistic view of the harvest opportunity ensures that simple bio diesel producers cannot engage economically in the processes of harvest purchase. The Jv takes no cognisance of the 66% value of seed harvest that is not oil, !!!?
This boarders on insanity, certainly not a business model to support:
A Better consideration:
From One tonne of seed:
a. 34% Oil
b. 48% Bio Organic Fertilizer
c. 18% Bio Organic Pesticide/Lechate
b & c deliver: 100% organic microbial bio-fertilizer and pesticide called JatroGRO and JatroPRO, which reduce fertilzer costs by 50% on average and usually increase yield about 20% over chemical fertilizers, while producing chemical free food. Some benefits:
* they reduce fertilizer costs by 50% on average-often more for farmers who have been using chemicals for a long time.
* they increase crop productivity by about 20% over chemical fertilizers.
* they improve and regenerate the soil, even removing chemicals left by chemical fertilizers.
* they increase both the major and minor nutrients in the soil, and provide the essential minor nutrients that chemical fertilizers do not provide.
* they activate and accelerate plant growth, blooming, and fruitation.
* they increase the absorption rate of nutrients.
* crops are healthier, weightier and fuller.
* rice crops grown with chemical fertilizer do not compare with rice grown with the bio-fertilizers. The stems are stronger (so the rice plants do not lean over unlike rice grown with chemical fertilizer), there are more roots, the roots are stronger and longer, the rice heads contain much more grain, the rice seeds don't fall off during harvesting, the soil is softer and has a lot of insect life, there is no problem with the usual rice diseases (white spot, rust, etc.) because the rice plants develop immunity, the quality of the rice is such that the seed becomes in demand as parent stock, etc.
* fruit trees produce more, the fruit is larger, crispier, tastier, sweeter, and the vitamin c level is higher.
* vegetables grow larger.
* tea contains less tannin.
* they immunize against pathogens and make the plant resistant to plant pests. As a result, chemical herbicide and insecticide sprays are not needed.
* fruit and vegetables are free of chemicals at a lower price.
* they alleviate rural poverty by making agriculture more profitable, successful, and by increasing income. They prevent the drift into urban areas by rehabilitating the soil and reviving agriculture where it has failed due to over-use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides.
The chance to eradicate chemical fertilizers from the country with all social, health and environmental problems they cause.
They also become integral components of the JCL agricultural extension system.
Prior to mature harvests establishing one should consider that all seed is prime young material best preserved for agricultural extension. No requirement for crushing. This allows the time required to establish the processing zones in developing economic regions.
10 Million hectares of decentralised Jatropha Curcas, average harvest yields, will deliver 20 million tonnes of Oil.
Approximately:
21,840,000,000 Billion Litres of Bio Fuel. @ £ 0.09 p/l, £ 1. 965 Billion GBP (BP's Target should be to acquire Bio Fuel at no more than the cost of Fossil fuel, shareholders should reject any other option)
28 Million tonnes of Bio Organic Fertilizer. @ £300 GBP p/t, £8.4 Billion GBP
16 Million Tonnes of Bio Organic pesticide/lechate. @ £200 GBP p/t, £ 3.2 Billion
Cost of seed purchase from mature harvests. 60 Million tonnes @ £ 120 GBP / Ton, 7.2 Billion GBP. (when only considering oil as the major value one cannot afford to purchase seed harvests at values that will stimulate or sustain agricultural activity)
Example of a doable project : ebt plc Kilimanjaro/Arusha project consists of 162 hectares of seed bank land of exceptional quality and a mandate to produce 500,000 hectares of Jatropha Curcas Linn for the region. This is further supported by a presidential mandate for 5,000,000 hectares nation wide.. Year round water, excellent soil structure and available skilled labour force. Ready to go! Tanzania can support more than five exceptional seed banks in various regions.
The CEO of D1 oils has politely refused the offer of the above. And or regard/access to the below:
Seed bank development and extension work should be promoted in those countries that do not have a high internal consumption demand for fossil diesel but huge requirements for land remediation, anti desertification and soil protection. Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda fit this bill. Hence there will be an ability without restriction to export crude oil surplus while promoting both fuel and food security nationally. Some SE Asian countries have similar profiles.
We at ebt plc are the founding members of D1 Oils Plc. We moved away in 2005 following the placement of management by brokers who had no clue or support for the primary business model. We have maintained the Product Development Centre in India and extended our knowledge of Jatropha Curcas Linn as well as the technologies that are available to deliver an economic program that attends to the development needs of third world economic regions. We have no need to fabricate or construct complex models for bio diesel processing/ownership of product or retain IP to ourselves exclusively. We are keen to produce a practical holistic view of the Jatropha Curcas Linn agriculture to Industry opportunity with due regard for the long term practicalities involved. While D1 seeks to leverage the value of seed in terms of oil content alone the executive has a blind eye to the "real" profits available (socio-economic benefits of some magnitude for all parties).. They need to look at the import expenses developing countries make for inorganic Fertilizer and pesticides. Returning the nutrient values derived from the 66% of harvest values is a much bigger more important business than Bio Fuel. Highly decentralised planting of Jatropha Curcas Linn ensures that ownership of land remains with rural farming communities. The impact is to ensure that there is an economic level of income flow into rural areas. The D1 model does not promote this. It makes no mention of the development of local markets by agency or the need to process the total harvests for maximisation of benefits. It is a shabby representation based upon false economic principles.
Transestrification to produce Bio Diesel at EU and ASTM standards is not required in developing countries. Emusification processess deliver excellent fuel without refinery costs or waste of energy content. The refinery technology possessed by D1 is by no means advanced technology, alternatives that maximise the use of oil feedstocks are available at substantially lower costs.
Finally the Jv does not openly stress the potential benefits for access to carbon Credits or collaboration with national government UNFCCC consultants. Quite obviously there is tremendous potential for bio fuel substitution/switching, yet more so for the reduction of fossil based inorganic agricultural inputs that drain national resources.

Auto giant DaimlerChrysler has been researching, planting and testing jatropha and a biodiesel derived from its oil for the past three years in Gujarat, in northwest India. The project has created a jatropha-euphoria in the poverty-stricken region, with the local farmers who participated seeing a great future in the energy crop. Other projects included growing the crop in the middle of the Egyptian desert, to prove that it thrives in the most extreme conditions. And in Madagascar, where up to 70% of people are unemployed in some regions, the crop has opened a new future for small farmers who can finally diversify their portfolio. For the first time in their lives, farmers across the developing world can grow a crop for which the disastrous phenomenon of over production no longer exists.
Germany's NTV conducted an interview [*German] with professor Klaus Becker, leader of the projects and director of Tropenzentrums (Tropical Agriculture) of the University of Hohenheim, revealing why the crop is attracting so much attention (e.g. oil giant BP and D1 Oils recently announced a global joint venture to grow the plant on a million hectares). Topics include the future of petroleum and oil prices, the social and environmental sustainability of jatropha, its potential to meet the fuel needs of the rapidly growing number of cars on the planet, climate change and new uses for the plant's oil based on the latest research.
Professor Becker, you have been researching the jatropha plant for DaimlerChrysler since 2003. What is DaimlerChrysler's stake? : DaimlerChrysler is interested in the crop because it will give India a high quality biodiesel that can be used directly in existing cars. We will not be establishing plantations ourselves. Initially the project was part of a marketing effort in India, but the crop has grown so popular that this has become larger than we expected. When a major company invests in such a project, people take things seriously, which is what happened with Jatropha.
You were the first to research jatropha on a large scale? : We were the first in Europe. For over 15 years we have been working with a consulting firm in Nicaragua to study jatropha. The plant is 70 million years old. But nobody was interested in it. Without the DaimlerChrysler project the current jatropha-euphoria would not have emerged.
Is jatropha-oil already being used as biodiesel? : We have been trialing it for the past two and a half years. The DaimlerChrysler office in Pune coordinates the road tests. We have multiple test vehicles. This year we plan to burn 40,000 liters of jatropha biodiesel - B100, our fuel does not need to be mixed with petro-diesel. All our tests are based on 100 percent pure jatropha biodiesel.
In ordinary, non-adapted vehicles? : In fully normal Mercedes-CDIs, yes.
We hear so much about jatropha, it sounds like a wonder plant : Well, it is a great crop.
Jatropha thrives on poor soils, but supposedly the crop even makes these soils more fertile so that other, less robust plants can be grown on it. Is that correct? : Yes it is. We have established jatropha on heavily degraded lands. After 10, 15 years we were able to win back this land, because jatropha had pushed back the effects of the erosion that had destroyed the soils. I offer money to anyone who can show me a negative aspect of cultivating jatropha.
It's a poisonous plant : That is, the plant can protect itself against predators. Besides, many ornamental plants in Europe are more poisonous than jatropha. But jatropha is a useful crop, or better: it is becoming a useful crop and precisely because it can protect itself against grazing animals, it can be grown on poor lands. The crop doesn't need to be fenced off or protected, it is its own fence. The region in which we work - Gujarat in northwest India, Gandhi-land - is extremely poor, but rich in waste-lands.
An added advantage supposedly is the fact that the plant can not be harvested mechanically. This creates lots of jobs : That's right. Especially the Indians think this is the most interesting aspect of the crop because it allows social and economic development in the rural areas. We are also working in Madagascar. There are regions there with unemployment rates of up to 70%. Currently there are no crops that can create a substantial number of jobs in the country - except energy crops. Most of the bioenergy crops we are accustomed to can be harvested mechanically. Jatropha on the contrary requires a large number of workers. The standard number we work with is 1.5 workers per hectare for the cultivation of the plants and for harvesting the oil seeds.
But does it make economic sense to grow jatropha if it is so labor intensive? : Yes it does, because energy prices will continue to rise. By 2030 the total number of cars on the planet's roads will have grown from 500 million today to 900 million. By then, countries like China will have overtaken the United States. Today there are 150 million cars on America's roads. In 2030 there will be 190 million in China.
But they can't all burn jatropha-oil, can they? : Quite frankly, they will burn whatever they can find. Anyone who produces any kind of energy will find a ready market for the coming 30 to 40 years, and will sell at the highest prices. For small farmers, this is a very important development: they now have a number of crops available for which the risk of overproduction does not exist - over production, the economic phenomenon that has been so disastrous to millions of poor farmers. With jatropha the farmers will, for the first time in their lives, find a stable market with few risks.
This brings us to climate change : The way we produce biodiesel from jatropha in India and Africa has a strong CO₂-balance. During the production of the crop we use relatively low amounts of fossil energy; much of the production consists of manual labor. This makes the balance much better than biodiesel made from, for example, rapeseed.
Have any large jatropha plantations been established? : Well, the crop can grow wherever temperatures are high enough. It is a tropical plant. But it uses much less water than other energy crops, because of its highly efficient strategy to use water. Together with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment in Egypt, we are doing trials in the middle of the desert. We irrigate it with waste water from the city. Nobody believes this, until they have seen it. We grow jatropha in the middle of the desert - the desert you see in post-cards - in the sand. The crop is irrigated with waste-water. And it thrives beautifully.
Jatropha-plants in the Egyptian desert - such a miracle crop must be attracting its fair share of snake oil vendors. There are a few websites playing with the crop, but they look amateurish : Well, when it comes to jatropha, the internet is less than amateurish. 5% of what you find is credible. There are people who ask a dollar per seed, others offer 20,000 tons of oil per month. In reality, such amounts are not yet available on the market. My estimate is that 5 million hectares of the crop are being established on a world wide scale, scattered across a vast number of countries. Only Myanmar (Burma) has made a serious effort and established 800,000 hectares over the past year (earlier post). It takes between 4 and 5 years before the plants mature. Other plantations [using improved crops] will take 3 years to reach maturity. Only then will a market for jatropha oil emerge.
In online drug stores it costs a lot for 500 milliliters of jatropha oil : Yes, jatropha oil is currently sold at that kind of quantities. In Mali, women sell jatropha based soap, very nice soap. In the past the famous Savon de Marseille was made from jatropha oil. The plant yields more than just oil, you see. We are investigating how we can turn jatropha press cakes (the residues that remain after the oil has been extracted) into animal fodder. We are researching how to remove the toxic substances from the meal. If we succeed, we can replace soybean meal, because the quality of jatropha-meal is better. Soya's raw protein content is around 45%; jatropha's is 60%. The only problem is the detoxification step that must be developed. But we are confident that we will pull it off. Even the toxic substance in jatropha, Phorbolester, is valuable. It is being used in cancer research. We want to develop a bio-pesticide from it - a natural product that can be used by organic farmers.
Where will the market for jatropha oil emerge first? In India? : The Indians need everything they produce. The Chinese too have large plans for jatropha; they are looking at establishing 13 million hectares of plantations by 2020.
When will we in Europe be utilizing jatropha-oil? : That's a matter of market policies and economics. Producers will sell to those who offer the best price. It's as simple as that.
But this depends on the evolution of the oil price, doesn't it? : Well, we are certain that oil prices will only get higher. You can bet on it. For the first time, the Chinese have produced more cars than Germany, 7.2 million last year to be precise. We are talking about growth rates of 6 to 8% per year. And that's only the Chinese. The world only talks about China and India, but South-East Asia is overlooked. Take countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, and even Brazil and Mexico. Or African countries like Nigeria. They are developing rapidly. In Europe, the positive correlation between the availability and use of energy and economic development [called the 'energy intensity' of an economy] is no longer that strong because we have the potential to save energy. But over there, in Africa and India, there is no savings potential because consumption is low. People there have nothing to save, they don't even have electricity!
The same is true for labor. Until the 1980s, the number of jobs and economic development was strongly correlated in Europe. Today share prices rise when companies cut jobs. In Africa and India the opposite is true - the situation there is the same as in Europe 30 years ago.
Does jatropha-oil offer the possibility to replace other petrochemical products? : Yes, very much so. From hydraulic oil to motor oil - for these purposes all plant oils are clearly better than mineral oils.
What about heating oil? : No problem. If you use jatropha biodiesel you don't need to build a protection wall around your tank. Contrary to petroleum based heating oil, biodiesel readily biodegrades in the soil. Biodiesel is ranked in class 1, petrodiesel in class 5 [German classes for fuel oil for home heating].
How to invest in jatropha? : Currently there are some serious investors active in Germany, Colombia, Indonesia and other countries. I'm not allowed to name them. But these investors will soon go public.
How many research projects you would qualify as 'serious' are currently underway? : Oil firm BP has been building on our research in India and has launched research activities there. [Note: the interview was conducted before the announcement of BP's joint venture with D1Oils]. Many universities now have jatropha research groups. At the Dutch University of Wageningen [Europe's leading agronomic university] there are 5 PhD theses being written as we speak. My estimate is that world-wide there are around 1,000 serious research groups working on jatropha. Over the coming years, the crop will reveal many of its secrets. Today, it remains a wild plant.

What would happen if the world were to start running out of oil? Conventional wisdom says we've got 30 years, but there's a growing fear amongst petroleum experts it's happening much sooner than we thought, that we are hitting the beginning of the end of oil now. So how soon will the oil run out, and can we stop our economy collapsing when it does? How prepared are we for the real oil crisis?
It's going to be very difficult to get gasoline for transport. Food is not going to be getting through in enough quantities to the shops. Conventional wisdom says that's at least 30 years away. So why does a growing group of petroleum experts believe it's coming within three? Many think frankly that it's happening now. It gives nightmares when one thinks about what we're headed for. Are they just scare mongers or have the rest of us been asleep at the wheel. Are we about to hit the real oil crisis? Really when the crisis dawns people are going to be looking back in anger. How have we allowed ourselves to get into this mess? In just a century, we've allowed our lives to become entirely dependent on cheap oil. And it's not just that 90% of our transportation is fuelled by oil. This shopping center is literally full of petroleum products. Look: the fabric in these clothes. It is petroleum based. These plastics, petroleum based.
Yet who of us stops to think oil is a finite resource - the lifeblood of our modern world is steadily pouring away. We just take it so much for granted that cars drive around, the pumps are always full. We talk to people in financial institutions who are investing on the assumption that oil supplies are going to grow and grow into the 2030's. We hardly ever meet anyone who knows about this problem outside a relatively elite group of whistleblowers inside and around the oil industry. The largest oil ever discovered was way back in 1965. Since 1965, the amount of oil discovered each year has inexorably plunged - despite all our advances in technology.
The last time we discovered a whole new province was the North Sea in the early 1970's and really you know these days the average size of an oil field that gets discovered is about 50 million barrels. It's nothing, it's a drop in the ocean. We're using 84 million barrels a day.
The last year we discovered more oil than we consumed was 1981. We use 2 barrels of oil for every barrel discovered. We have been talking to people who we know and they tell us there are no more big oil fields left to find.
So if we've found nearly all the world's oil, how long before it runs out? Surprisingly, that's not so important. The real question is when will we reach half way, it's known as 'peak oil'. So what exactly is peak oil, and why is it so serious? The reason we feel strongly about this is that people don't understand the underlying causes of why petrol prices are going up and what the effect that could have on our lives. When oil is first pumped, it's under pressure and comes out easily, production rises. But over time, oil pressure drops. Water is pumped in to maintain pressure. At the half way point, it reaches peak oil, and then we are holding on to peak production at the moment but we'll be going into the inexorable decline of all oil fields very shortly. There's nothing you can do? No you can slow the decline but you can't stop it. When an oil field passes peak oil, this is what we are getting out of this old oil well. It's 99% water and 1% oil.
All oil fields follow the same pattern of rise, peak, then fall, even if they encompass an entire nation. The US hit peak oil in 1971. The UK with its North Sea oil peaked in 1999. So when will planet earth reach peak oil? That depends on what's really happening here. The place that provides a quarter of the world's oil - the Middle East.
These governments have not let anyone in to verify how much oil they have for getting on for a quarter of a century and in the 1980's there were some really suspicious treatment of oil reserves data. Most of the Gulf countries increased their national proved reserves supposedly by in some cases up to double, and then ever since the quoted figures have not gone down very much at all. I don't believe that for a minute. The dissident geologists went back to original surveys to estimate total Middle East oil. They added world known reserves, and projections of all future oil to be discovered. That's how they calculated the world will reach peak oil in the next 3 years - if we're not there already.
2008, maybe 2009, certainly no later than 2010. That's the point at which we will no longer be living in a world with growing supplies of generally cheap oil but instead living in a world of rapidly shrinking supplies of ever vastly more expensive oil and that point of realization is going to come as a real shock. Then we will see world record oil prices. Who knows how high they can go.
So what does the mainstream think? The world's largest petroleum company is ExxonMobil - Esso. It employs 20,000 scientists to generate their own exhaustive data sets. Many acknowledge oil will run down eventually, but just vigorously disputes when. Well people have been predicting for over a hundred years that we're going to run out of oil. It hasn't happened. We don't think it's going to happen in the near term. Exxon calculates twice as much oil left in the world as the so called 'early peakers' - placing peak oil decades away. We are talking at least out to 2030 with what we know today. And then potentially another 20 - 30 years beyond that with technologies that we can envisage might exist. You know if we can improve technology by only 10% then we can recover an additional 600 - 800 billion barrels of oil.
If this view is correct, we have plenty of time for a smooth, market driven transition to alternatives via hybrid cars. Cruising in the balm of this reassuring future, it's tempting to dismiss the 'early peak' camp entirely, as a small bunch of vested interest dooms dayers. But it's not that easy. Petroleum giant Chevron is now running these startling advertisements. This is what the early peak camp are terrified of an apocalyptic gulf between dwindling supply and rising demand from the voracious east. It's panic that causes collapses in markets. People start selling their shares. That's what happened in October 1929 and it just snowballs. Rationing or people having to queue for three days to get a tank full of petrol, people not being able to afford to heat their houses. If you get Petrol at 2 to 3 to 4 dollars a liter, you really are grinding to a halt.
But couldn't we just switch to alternatives - like solar cars or hydrogen? This is a transition that can't be done overnight. Hydrogen technology is being developed but it's a 20 year program. The next 20 years are an absolute critical point where we don't know that we can make it. We just feel we haven't started soon enough. The trouble is, if peak oil is imminent, other mooted oil substitutes, like biofuels, tar sands, shale oil, could only yield a fraction of the world's needs. And no one can think of an alternative fuel for aeroplanes. So we have looked at it all and we don't see a way of closing the gap quickly enough. That's the honest and depressing answer. It's all about renaissance. It's all about how quickly we can repair the problems and get an alternative infrastructure after the crisis breaks.
Whether we reach the end of cheap oil in 3 years or 30, it will be a defining moment for human society. Even if there's only a one in ten chance the early peakers are right, with the lifeblood of our economy at stake, shouldn't we listen, just in case.
If people are taking the view that they need to speak out, we think it's time to start taking it seriously. We have lots of preparedness for terrorist attacks; but where's the plan for peak oil? We don't have one. We think the interesting thing about the problem is that we'll find out. We'll find out who's right really soon, within a few years it will happen and play out on our watch.

Q: What's the difference between an oil analyst and a used car salesman?
A: The used car salesman knows when he's lying.
That's a variation on the old joke about computer salesmen, but it can apply just as well to oil market analysts--such as the roughly 150 energy analysts and statisticians who work for the International Energy Association (IEA), the Paris-based agency that advises 26 OECD nations on energy.
On Monday 16th July 2007, they had what one would consider a "come-to-Jesus moment," walking before the whole world to the front of the tent, admitting their unworthiness and publicly confessing their sins.
The confession was in their bombshell "Medium Term Oil Market Report," which looks at the global oil market over the next five years. And it was stark:
Despite four years of high oil prices, this report sees increasing market tightness beyond 2010. It is possible that the supply crunch could be deferred, but not by much.
That was enough to set blogs and presses and email systems afire the world over. It's a decent piece of work, 82 pages with lots of good charts and data. It was also a welcome break from the delusional projections that the IEA has made for its entire 30-year existence, consistently predicting that supply will magically meet whatever the demand was projected to be.
Because for the first time, the IEA admitted that they have some doubts about oil supply keeping up with demand.

Essentially, the report's conclusions boil down to this:


1. Demand will rise at about the rate of 2.2% a year through 2012, primarily driven by the developing world's consumption, which is rising three times as fast as in the OECD. Transportation fuels will be the largest source of demand, by far.

2. Non-OPEC production is expected to increase from 50 mbpd today to 52.5 mbpd by 2012, but the additional production will be mainly from unconventional sources such as natural gas liquids, tar sands production, extra heavy oil, coal-to-liquids, even biofuels.

3. OPEC spare capacity will increase slightly from 2.5 mbpd in 2007 to a high of 3.4 mbpd in 2009, then decline to just 1.5 mbpd (1.6% of demand) by 2012. Almost all of it will have to come from Saudi Arabia.

Depletion rates are worrisome: "Net oilfield decline rates average 4.6% annually for non-OPEC and 3.2% per year for OPEC crude. Aggregate levels mask much sharper declines in a 15-20% per annum range for mature producing areas and for many recent deepwater developments. All told, the forecast suggests the industry needs to generate 3.0 million barrels / day of new supply each year just to offset decline. Notwithstanding, above-ground supply risks are seen exceeding below-ground risks in the medium term." Rising project costs, shortages of labor and materials, and geopolitical problems will continue to plague world oil production, and conspire to create uncertainty and delay projects, so supply could fall short of demand by 2010. And shortages of natural gas are even more imminent.
As Steve Andrews of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) described the report on a CNBC appearance this week, we have a "three D problem": Demand, Depletion, and Delays.
ASPO's estimate for global peak has been set at 2011 since March, having stood at 2010 since 2005. So this is a somewhat of a return to the fold of the truthful for the IEA.
The bottom line? IEA says that global demand will reach 95 million barrels per day by 2012, up from 86 million barrels per day today, but they don't see how we can get there, and neither do observers like T. Boone Pickens, Matthew Simmons and the geologists of the ASPO. We might not increase beyond where we already are, or we might manage to produce as much as 90-91 million barrels per day, but it's not likely, and in any case we'll probably be at the ultimate peak by 2010-2011.
Oh, and by the way, Simmons also said this week that there's a "real risk" that gas pumps could run dry somewhere in this country this summer, due to our limited refining capacity (another factor mentioned in the IEA report).
It seems confirmed that we'll have shortages starting now, with the big crunch and skyrocketing oil prices, just two to four years from now.
Said Lawrence Eagles, head of the IEA's oil industry and markets division: "The results of our analysis are quite strong. Either we need to have more supplies coming on stream or we need to have lower demand growth."
The IEA even acknowledged the peak of non-OPEC conventional oil, although they couldn't quite bring themselves to say it:
"The concept of peak oil production and its timing are emotive subjects which raise intense debate. Much rests on the definition of which segment of global oil production is deemed to be at or approaching peak. Certainly our forecast suggests that the non-OPEC, conventional crude component of global production appears, for now, to have reached an effective plateau, rather than a peak."
Redefining conventional crude oil, by including sources like tar sands and coal-to-liquids, is really bending over backwards in order to call the top a "plateau" instead of a "peak." In the end, they seemed to really try to put a happy face on their otherwise dire report.
Finally, we note that focusing on non-OPEC crude alone is a rather selective way of considering the sustainability of global oil production. Peak or plateau production is frequently taken as shorthand for impending resource exhaustion. While hydrocarbon resources are finite, nonetheless issues of access to reserves, prevailing investment regime and availability of upstream infrastructure and capital seem greater barriers to medium-term growth than limits to the resource base itself.
But that's a "dog ate my homework" quality apology. Crude production is an honest measure of its sustainability! And when you get to peak production, we know from experience that you're near the halfway point of total production, so it really is an indicator of resource exhaustion. And the accessibility of reserves affects when you reach the peak, so that doesn't explain away anything.
We currently have billions in oil-industry capital that can't find any decent place to invest itself, even with oil prices in record territory and insatiable demand. If the market can't produce oil now, when can it?
In fairness, they did temper that little rationalization by noting the "curious contrast" between higher cash return to energy company shareholders and "essentially unchanged exploration and production efforts."
Above-ground factors, below-ground factors, who cares? When you're falling from a cliff, does it matter if you leaped or were pushed off?
Let us not forget what IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde just two weeks ago: "If Iraqi production does not rise exponentially by 2015, we have a very big problem, even if Saudi Arabia fulfills all its promises. The numbers are very simple, there's no need to be an expert."
Many peak oil observers, have been hard on the IEA in the past for their wildly optimistic projections. So we should take a moment now to acknowledge that they have finally owned up to reality and admitted the error of their past projections.

POTENTIALS FOR WASTELAND DEVELOPMENT AND TREE BORNE OILSEEDS (TBOs) FOR BIODIESEL BY PLANTING JATROPHA CURCAS L COVERED UNDER THE SPEECHES DELIVERED BY THE HONOURABLE PRESIDENT
PART - 1
ADDRESS TO THE NATION BY THE PRESIDENT OF INDIA
Dr. A.P.J.ABDUL KALAM ON THE EVE OF 56TH REPUBLIC DAY - 2005
ACTION PLAN FOR EMPLOYMENT GENERATION
[Highlighted paragraphs related to wasteland development to cultivate Jatropha plantation for BIO-DIESEL and to create employment.]

Dear citizens,
Let me share with you how to generate employment. The most important sectors for sustainable national development are Agriculture, Education, Health-care, Water and Energy. The common thread that will run across these would be the three connectivities of PURA. One of the ways by which the rural agriculture could increase their earnings is by value adding to the agricultural produce by processing and manufacturing. The farmers either individually or through their co-operatives would market processed and value added items instead of marketing the raw materials. This increase in the value addition taking place in the rural area itself is and indicator of the society moving towards property and knowledge era. I would like to like to suggest a few schemes that can bring large scale employment and prosperity to our people.
BIO-DIESEL GENERATION
We have nearly 63 million hectares of wasteland available in the country, out of which 33 million hectares of wasteland have been allotted for tree plantation; certain multi-purpose bio-fuel plants like Jatropha Curcas L can grow well in wasteland with very minimum input. Once cultivated the crop has fifty years of life. Fruiting can take place in these plants in two years. Bio-fuel plants grown in parts of the waste land. For example 11 million hectares can yield a revenue of approximately Rs.20,000 crore a year and provide employment to over 12 million people both for plantation and running of the extraction plants. It will reduce the foreign exchange outflow paid for importing crude oil, the cost of which continuously rising in the international market.
The Bio-fuel is carbon mono-oxide emission free. The oil can also be used for soap and in candle industries. De-oiled cake is a raw material for composting and the plantation is also good for honey production. We should absorb best of the technologies available worldwide and start commercial operation immediately. One time investment needed for bio-diesel plantation to production in 11 million hectares will be approximately Rs.27,000 crores. The capital equipment and investment in plant and machinery can come from bank loans and private sector entrepreneurs.
I have seen the progress in bio-fuel plant cultivation, preparation of seedlings, tissue culture and development of non-toxic hybrid varieties in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. They have also worked from processing of seeds to bio-fuel production by the indigeous design and development of bio-fuel plants. Anand Agriculture University of Anand (Gujarat) has also made progress in the bio-fuel cultivation and processing in Gujarat Bio-fuel plants can be grown in a central part of the country.

PART - 2
Dr. A.P.J.ABDUL KALAM
SPEECH ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON THE EVE OF
THE 59TH INDEPENDENCE DAY 2005
AS
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
[Highlighted paragraphs About Wasteland Development
BIO-FUEL / DIESEL & JATROPHA PLANTATION]

My dear citizen,
Energy Independence:
Today on this 59th Independence Day, I would like to discuss with all of you another important area that is "Energy Security" as a transition to total "Energy Independence". Energy is the lifeline of modern societies. But today India has 17% of the world's population and just 0.8% of the world's known oil and natural gas resources.
We might expand the use of our coal reserves for some time and that too at a cost and with environmental challenges. The climate of the globe as a whole is changing. Our water resources are also diminishing at a faster rate. As it is said, energy and water demand will soon surely be a defining characteristic of our people's life in the 21st Century.
Energy Security rests on two principles. The first, to use the least amount of energy to provide services and cut down energy losses. The second, to secure access to all sources of energy including coal, oil and gas supplies worldwide, till the end of the fossil fuel area which is fast approaching. Simultaneously we should access technologies to provide a diverse supply of reliable, affordable and environmentally sustainable energy.
As you all know, our annual requirement of oil is 114 million tones. Significant part of this is consumed in the Transportation Sector. We produce only about 25% of our total requirement. The presently known resources and future exploration of oil and gas may give mixed results. The import and cost today of oil and natural gas is overRs.1,20,000crores. Oil and gas prices are escalating; the barrel cost of oil has doubled within a year. This situation has to be combated.
Energy Security, which means ensuring that our country can supply lifeline energy to all its citizens, at affordable costs at all times, is thus a very important and significant need and is an essential step forward. But it must be considered as a transition strategy, to enable us to achieve our real goal that is Energy Independence or an economy which will function well with total freedom from oil, gas or coal imports. Is it possible?
Hence, Energy Independence has to be our nation's first and highest priority. We must be determined to achieve this within the next 25 years i.e. by the year 2030. This one major, 25-year national mission must be formulated, funds guaranteed and the leadership entrusted without delay as public - private partnerships to our younger generation, now in their 30's as their lifetime mission in a renewed drive for nation building.
Goals and Policies:
Now friends, I would now like to discuss with you some goals, strategies and policies for a major national Mission to attain Energy Independence.
Use of bio - fuels:
We have nearly 60 million hectares of wasteland, of which 30 million hectares are available for energy plantations like "Jatropha". Once grown, the crop has a life of 50 years. Each acre will produce about 2tonnes of bio-diesel at about Rs.20 per litre. Bio-diesel is carbon neutral and many valuable by-products flow from this agro-industry. Intensive research is needed to burn bio-fuel in internal combustion engines with high efficiency, and this needs to be a urgent R & D programme. India has potential to produce nearly 60 million tones of bio-fuel annually, thus making a significant and important contribution to the goal of Energy Independence. Indian Railway has already taken a significant step of running two passenger locomotives (Thanjavur to Nagore section) and six trains of diesel multiple units (Tiruchiraplli to Lalgudi, Dindigul and Karur sections) with 95% blend of bio-fuel sourced from its in-house esterification plants. In addition, they have planted 75lakh Jatropha saplings in Railway land which is expected to give yields from the current year onwards. This is a pioneering example for many other organizations to follow. Similarly many states in our country have energy plantations. What is needed is a full economic chain from farming, harvesting, extraction to esterification, blending and marketing. Apart from employment generation, bio-fuel has a significant potential to lead our country towards energy independence.
The other critical options are development of electric vehicles; hydrogen based vehicles, electrification of Railways and urban mass transportation.
CONCLUSION
By 2020 the nation should achieve comprehensive energy security through enhancement of our oil and gas exploration and production worldwide. By the year 2030, India should achieve energy independence through solar power and other forms of renewable energy; maximize the utilization of hydro and nuclear power and enhance the bio-fuel production through large scale energy plantations, like Jatropha.
We need to evolve a comprehensive renewable energy policy for energy independence within a year. This should address all issues relating to generation of energy through wind, solar, geothermal, bio-mass and ocean. The nation should also work towards establishment of Thorium based reactors. Research and technology development of Thorium based reactors is one of the immediate requirements for realizing self-reliance in nuclear power generation and long term energy security for the nation.
We should operationalize a 500 MW capacity power plant using integrated gasification and combined cycle route within the next three years from the existing pilot stage.
Bio-fuel research should be extended in collaboration with R&D Laboratories, academic institutions and automobile industry to make it a "Full Fledged Fuel" for the fleet running in the country in a time bound manner. This should lead to a mission made integrated programme encompassing various ministries and industries. Also there is a need to formulate a comprehensive Bio-Fuel policy from research, development, production to marketing.
Energy security leading to Energy independence is certainly possible and is within the capability of the nation. India has knowledge, natural resources; what we need is planned integrated missions to achieve the target in a time bound manner. Let us all work for self-sufficient environment friendly energy independence for the nation.
JAI HIND
May God Bless you all
PLEASE NOTE: Even in speeches delivered by the President of India during last two years in the eve of Independence and Republic Day, he has given message to all unemployed youths and farmers of India for concentrating their minds on waste land development for planting biodiesel plants like Jatropha Curcas L by which they may get adequate employment by implementing various schemes & projects with the help of banking industries and related government departments ultimately creating Green India and total growth in Indian economy.

Views of Indian Billionaires on bio-fuel : India's well-known investors who are known for their Midas touch have spotted an opportunity in bio-fuel, betting big on ethanol, bio-mass and even bio-fuel equipment makers in India and other parts of the globe.
Billionaires Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, C Sivasankaran, Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems, and Nemish Shah, the media-shy joint partner of Enam Financial Services, are investing in bio-fuel makers quietly, expecting that bio-fuel will have a big play in the coming years as the world looks for a viable alternative to the fast depleting oil reserves.
Jhunjhunwala, who is known for his ability to spot a multi-bagger at a very early stage, recently invested in Hyderabad-based bio-fuel firm Nandan Biometrics. He is also a 10 per cent stakeholder in Praj Industries, which is a bio-fuel technology provider and equipment maker.
"Bhai (as Jhunjhunwala is known in market circles) is bullish on biofuel and the broad alternative energy space. He is looking at several unlisted companies for more investments," said a source.
Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems and a leading green fuel investor through his Khosla Ventures, holds a minor stake in Praj Industries. But, Khosla, who is scouting for more investments in India, is playing a high stakes game in Brazil. He has backed Brazilian Renewable Energy Company (Brenco) and also made investments in Segetis, founded by former Soviet scientists Sergey and Olga Selifonova, to develop renewable chemical products.
C Sivasankaran, who sold his stake in mobile phone company Aircel to Malaysian conglomerate Maxis Communications for over $1 billion, has set up "E85 Inc", an ethanol producing company in Raleigh, North Carolina, investing $200 million late last year.
"Alternative energy, broadly, is an area which we are excited about as an investment opportunity," said Rahul Bhasin, managing director, Barings Private Equity, which has invested in Auro Mira Energy, a wind energy company.
Market sources say Nemish Shah, who spotted multi-baggers Sesa Goa and Infosys when everyone was looking the other way in the early 1990s, is also making quiet moves in biofuel companies in India, both listed and unlisted.
Sources say little known IKF Technologies, which is entering bio-fuel production in a big way, has come on his investment radar. A listed company, IKF Tech recently sought government leases for a total of 150,000 hectares of land in Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa to cultivate jatropha to produce biofuel.
"There are several factors that can make India successful in the alternative energy space: availability of natural resources, cost-effective engineering and manufacturing talent and high cost of importing traditional fuels," said Arun Natarajan of Venture Intelligence, a PE tracking firm.
"While I do not see alternative energy posing a threat to sectors that are traditional favourites with investors -- like IT & IT-enabled services and manufacturing any time soon, there is definitely a strong interest in this sector," he added.

The European Union plans to give money to help developing countries grow energy crops rich nations want to use for transport fuel, the EU aid chief said Friday.
Europe and the United States plan to use more low-carbon emission biofuels to reduce their dependence on imported oil and cut their contribution to global warming.
EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel said the EU would allocate part of a 220 million euro ($300 million) foreign aid budget to offer countries investment and technical skills so they can jump on the biofuel bandwagon. Officials were unable to give a precise figure.
He said the EU was currently studying how sugar producers from former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, or ACP, could turn to ethanol production while other regions could grow oilseed crops.
The biofuel boom offers an answer to fears that ACP countries will lose out as the EU slashes sugar prices it kept artificially high for decades.
For more than 30 years, these countries had preferential access to rich European markets and grew crops that Europe wanted. The EU is now pushing them to turn to other crops by cutting trade tariffs for other products - and may reduce high ethanol tariffs in the future although this is likely to benefit Brazil more than other sugar exporting countries.
Michel acknowledged concerns that turning land over to energy crops might reduce food production but said this should not hold back a "historic" opportunity to introduce new crops where there is high demand.
But nonprofit groups warn that the benefits of biofuel production - access to energy and new income - could be outweighed by rising food prices and more competition for the same land.
Even small increases in food prices could harm populations living on less than a dollar per day, said International Food Policy Research Institute director Joachim von Braun.
A report this week from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned that high prices for wheat and maize - blamed on increasing demand for biofuels - could last through the decade.
Simon Trace from development campaigner Practical Action said there still isn't enough proof that using more biofuels will slow down climate change since refining some of them drains a considerable amount of energy, canceling out environmental benefits.
"If we get this wrong, if we waste time and resources in chasing something that does not reduce climate change, we are potentially pushing millions of people into poverty," Trace said, painting a scenario where food prices go up as land is turned over to energy crops.
Officials from Senegal and the Dominican Republic cautioned that rich nations need to be involved to make sure multinational companies and farmers negotiate fair land agreements.

1. Currently strong world market prices for many agricultural commodities in international trade are, in large measure, due to factors of a temporary nature, such as drought related supply shortfalls, and low stocks. But, structural changes such as increased feedstock demand for biofuel production, and the reduction of surpluses due to past policy reforms, may keep prices above historic equilibrium levels during the next 10 years.

2. Higher commodity prices are a particular concern for net food importing developing countries as well as the poor in urban populations, and will evoke on-going debate on the "food versus fuel" issue. Furthermore, while higher biofuel feedstock prices support incomes of producers of these products, they imply higher costs and lower incomes for producers that use the same feedstock in the form of animal feed.

3. The expectation that world market prices have attained a higher plateau may facilitate further policy reform away from price support. This would reduce the need for border protection and would provide flexibility for tariff reductions.

4. Growing use of cereals, sugar, oilseeds and vegetable oils to satisfy the needs of a rapidly increasing biofuel industry, is one of the main drivers in the outlook. Over the outlook period, substantial amounts of maize in the US, wheat and rapeseed in the EU and sugar in Brazil will be used for ethanol and bio-diesel production. This is underpinning crop prices and, indirectly through higher feed costs, the prices for livestock products as well.

5. Given that in most temperate zone countries ethanol and bio-diesel production are not economically viable without support, a different combination of production technologies, biofuel policies and crude oil prices than is assumed in this Outlook could to lead to lower prices than are projected in this Outlook.

6. The assumed strong growth in demand in many developing and emerging economies will spur expansion in imports as well as provide the impetus to the development of domestic production capacity. As a result, OECD countries as a group are projected to lose production and export shares in many commodities to non-OECD countries over the outlook period.

7. Measured by global imports, world trade is projected to grow for all commodities reviewed in this report, without exception. By 2016, and compared to the average for 2001-05, trade expansion remains modest for SMP (7%), is situated at 13% to 17% for coarse grains and wheat respectively, but grows by between over 50% for beef, pigmeat and WMP and by close to 70% for vegetable oils.

8. Imports grow more strongly in developing countries than in OECD countries for all products except vegetable oils. And for all products except wheat and coarse grains, these growing markets are increasingly satisfied through larger exports from other developing countries. Agricultural world markets are thus characterised by growing south-south trade, raising the competition for exporting countries within the OECD.

9. The growing presence on export markets of Argentina and Brazil is staggering. While Brazil's growth is mostly concentrated in sugar, oilseeds and meats, Argentina's export performance also covers cereals and many dairy products. Other growing exporters in the developing and transition economies include Russia and the Ukraine for coarse grains, VietNam and Thailand for rice, Indonesia and Thailand for vegetable oils, and Thailand, Malaysia, India and China for poultry.

10. Import growth is much more widely spread across countries. However, China's dominance of oilseeds and oilseed products trade is striking. By 2016, China will have become the world's largest importer of oilseed meals and it will have further consolidated its leading position in imports of oils and oilseeds. For the latter product, its share in global imports will have risen to almost 50%.

Call it a blessing from the blue. Companies, big and small, are turning to Jatropha cultivation in a big way, as the search for 'blue-sky' technologies gather pace. From conglomerates like the Tatas and Reliance to smaller players like Epic Energy, Jatropha, or bio-diesel, is fast becoming the buzzword. Spurring them and others is the booming automobile industry.
Tata Chemicals is not alone. Reliance Industries, Reliance Energy, Tata Motors, Suzlon Energy and many others like Asian Electronics, Praj Industries, KS Oils and Epic Energy are fast moving towards identifying opportunities in this space.
Tata Chemicals will be setting up its first bio-ethanol plant in Maharashtra, with an investment of Rs 50 crore and a capacity of 30 kilo litres per day. It will initially use conventional technologies for the bio-fuel plant, but would later leverage on new technologies that come out of its R&D facility in Pune.
Epic Energy, a small Mumbai-based company, also plans to cultivate bio-diesel (Jatropha) in a big way. Reliance Industries has also kick-started moves to own corporate farms that will grow Jatropha and Pongamia pinnata.
Specialising in energy conservation, bio-fuels and solar energy products, Epic's main income is from saving energy for its clients through energy- saving equipment. It derives 60% of its turnover from this and the rest from the sale of solar products.
Meanwhile, LT Overseas has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Madhya Pradesh to plant Jatropha on 20,000 hectares of wasteland. The company has also tied up with a European company for its biodiesel programme and plans to enter into the processing of Jatropha in a couple of years. K S Oils is also drawing plans to begin Jatropha plantation and has applied to the MP government to allow it to grow Jatropha in an area of about 50,000 hectares.
Analysts aver that Jatropha cultivation has spread across the eastern and southern states. West Bengal, Manipur, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have made a head-start in addition to Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
The Emami Group, the maker of face creams, plans to commence commercial production of bio-diesel by the end of this calendar year.
The bio-diesel plant, spread over 25 acres, is the first-of-its-kind in eastern India and will require an investment of Rs 150 crore. The plant will have an initial production capacity of 1 lakh tonnes per annum. De Smet Engineering Private Ltd, a group company of Desmet Ballestra, an Italian-Belgian joint enterprise, will provide technical assistance to set up the plant.
- Mithun Roy, DNA, July 16, 2007 (Edited) Original Report.