LOS BAÑOS, Laguna—Two years since local research efforts into jatropha began, the shrub, planted by some farmers as a natural fence, may soon be put to better use.
A plan to create more energy-independent communities using jatropha methyl ester (JME) in diesel for the country’s poorest rural areas may be realized before the end of this year, according to Rafael Coscolluela, vice chairman of the government run National Biofuels Board (NBB).
Citing the speed by which this program can be implemented, Coscolluela said the NBB has been working with the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), which is spearheading JME research, toward putting up a replicable model for village-type jatropha operations all over the country.
The NBB chief is targeting pilots to be set up within 2009.
“There is a parallel market that can be met by jatropha diesel fuel,” said Coscolluela, former governor of Negros Occidental province, at the sidelines of a biofuel forum held last week.
The forum was hosted by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca), in a two-day conference which brought together officials from the government and academe involved in the biofuel sector.
Coscolluela further said even with the current oversupply of the more prevalent diesel with coconut methyl ester (CME), he sees a large demand for JME diesel for small towns and communities in the provinces.
Describing the current situation, he said coconut farmers sell their produce to big oil players and processing plants, which then sell their biodiesel through gasoline stations. However, these stations are often inaccessible to small provincial towns, he said, adding that diesel prices tend to be more expensive the farther away one is from Metro Manila.
JME diesel can fuel cooking stoves and power small-town generators, as well as farming equipment and vehicles like tractors and pumps that run on diesel engines.
“If diesel fuel from jatropha is produced in the rural areas for local consumption, just imagine how much you’re saving in terms of transportation costs alone,” said the chief of the NBB, which oversees the Philippine biofuel program.
This program is not without precedent. According to India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat), a global independent research institute aiding poor semi-arid areas, they have had some success in using biodiesel to help sustain village needs.
“Research for development is the new paradigm,” said Dr. Rex Navarro, a Filipino who is the director of communication and special assistant to Icrisat’s director general Dr. William Dar, former Philippine Department of Agriculture secretary.
He also noted improvements in the villages around Hyderabad City, capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
In partnership with the Indian government, Icrisat succeeded in creating a rehabilitation model for 300 hectares of common degraded land in the Rangareddy district in the outskirts of Hyderabad, and also in the poor tribal villages in the northern Adilabad District.
Icrisat said the biofuel extracted from these areas are derived from jatropha and pongamia tree seeds, also a nonedible source of biodiesel, and are used locally in villages or sold in markets.
Dr. Virgilio Villancio, UPLB’s program leader of the integrated research and development program on jatropha for biodiesel, estimated that jatropha investments for the Philippines would cost P2 million to P3 million per town. The expense, he said, is mostly for the shrub’s processing equipment.
A jatropha oil expeller, which separates oil from the jatropha seed, costs at least P2 million.
This machine can extract some 1,000 liters of jatropha oil a day and is suitable for a 200-hectare jatropha field—a land area nearly 15 times the size of the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.
UPLB estimates that there are some 1,500 liters of jatropha oil—from about 1,600 plants—per hectare. After processing, this quantity, said Villancio, can supply the diesel requirements of a small town.
Villancio did not give specific areas where they will set up pilot facilities, but noted in his presentation several suitable locations identified by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
These include broad swaths of lands in Cagayan Valley, Ilocos, Calabarzon, Central Luzon, Bicol, Mindoro , Palawan, Central and Eastern Visayas, Caraga and Zamboanga, among several others. Overall, there are almost 13 million hectares of land suitable for jatropha planting.
Clearing misconceptions
This latest direction for the jatropha program underscores how sentiments toward the crop have evolved in recent years. Jatropha’s ascension as a miracle crop, and then decried as a “blunder” crop, was largely due to the lack of information available then, said Villancio.
“In the Philippines, the hype went ahead of development, so we in development had to catch up,” he said, noting the number of farmers who started planting jatropha without fully understanding how to treat it, or even the correct variety to plant.
Villancio said UPLB has conducted research on hundreds of samples of Jatropha curcas, the crop’s scientific name, based on oil yield and fatty-acid profile, among other characteristics. Today, UPLB has narrowed that list to over a dozen promising selections, he said.
Meanwhile, the two-year study titled “Ex-Ante Socioeconomic and Institutional Assessment of Jatropha Production, Promotion and Development as Biodiesel” sought to provide the social impacts as well as field realities of jatropha as a biodiesel source.
It was carried out by UPLB in 15 locations across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and is set to be concluded in July 2009.
Dr. Nena Espiritu, assistant professor at the UPLB College of Forestry and Natural Resources, shared partial results from the study, in which she is the project leader.
Citing excerpts from the report, Espiritu corrected many early misconceptions about jathropa like claims that it will compete with food, as farmers switch to jatropha farming instead of food crops. Jatropha is a nonfood crop, unlike coconut.
Almost 50 percent of farmers polled disagreed that jatropha production will overtake food production. They reasoned that jatropha will only be planted in marginal or poor-quality lands, and also because food crops can be readily sold and can sustain their needs.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of farm implementers also see no food-fuel competition, for similar reasons.
Another belief was that jatropha needed minimal input requirements like water, fertilizer, pesticides and less laborers. But according to UPLB, the crop is susceptible to pests like yellow mites and red spider mites and thrips, a small winged pest.
She acknowledged that crops need maintenance, and therefore can be very labor-intensive.
Yet, it is also for this precise reason that jatropha farming presents opportunities to create more jobs in towns and villages.
Jatropha for income augmentation
In the UPLB study, a significant number (95 percent) of farmers and implementers hold a favorable view of jatropha, anticipating that it will deliver more income and jobs, among other reasons.
Villancio said that for now, prices are at P6 to P7 per kilogram (kg). One hectare of jatropha holds an average of 5,250 kg (5 tons) of seeds, according to the UPLB scientist.
“At that price, farmers can make money, but not that much,” he said. He added that more research should be put into a detoxification study, to determine the viability of selling jatropha byproducts to produce, for instance, fertilizers and even livestock feed. The jatropha seed has toxic characteristics.
Villancio also noted that the village model is favored over large-scale plantations because JME in diesel is not competitive with mainstream diesel prices due to the lower cost of global crude-oil prices, which as of Friday have slid over 60 percent since its peak in July 2008.
Technology improving
Villancio said that research has also improved particularly with jatropha-growing techniques.
Improvements in pruning, for instance, increased the number of fruiting branches. UPLB can now achieve 48 fruiting branches per shrub. Jatropha seed, about two to three per fruit, has yields of 30 percent to 40 percent crude nonedible oil. The oil expeller can recover some 80 percent of seed oil content.
Intercropping, or planting other produce with jatropha, is also being used. Citing UPLB research studies, Villancio said turmeric and sweet potatoes are the best performers among trials, which included papaya, pineapple and arrowroot, a root crop.
Challenges still remain, like the length of time to develop jatropha fields. While jatropha plants may start bearing some fruit in six months, and harvesting may occur by the eighth month, Villancio said it would still take three to four years for it to reach full productivity. Also, issues on funding support and tenurial issues of land committed for jatropha have to be worked out.
“Biofuels present just one solution; we can’t pretend that this will solve all problems,” said Coscolluela. “But it can contribute a lot of we do it properly.”
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