Germination of Jatropha curcas L.
Jatropha curcas L. is an upcoming biofuel crop, which is claimed to simultaneously reclaim wastelands, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance socio-economic development in rural areas of the South 1.
Jatropha plantation in Allahabad, India
According to me/us sufficient scientific knowledge is yet to emerge to support commercial large scale Jatropha biodiesel production 2. Knowledge gaps are most persistent in Jatropha’ genetics, agronomy and physiology.
But I wanted to talk about a discussion in the socio-economic domain: the positive and negative aspects of the labor intensive character of the Jatropha cultivation on livelihoods of rural communities in the South.
The main thing is the unequal ripening of the Jatropha fruits (see picture). Fruits are best harvested at maturity. But since the fruits, which grow in bunches, do not all ripen at the same time, harvesting takes a lot of time.
Jatropha fruits. From left to right: unripe – half ripe – ripe.
The fact that it requires a lot of labor at first looks like beneficial for rural job creation. But (in general), is every job created beneficial? If jobs created are underpaid, unsure, possibly health threatening, …in short, not meeting any international standard on labor, are they worth being created? Maybe not…, but in cases where there are no other opportunities, even such job can be still bring relief to important problems, but can also cause new problems… So, should they be created in such circumstances?
Next to these social aspects you, of course, also have the economic aspects. The end product of the Jatropha system (also calculating the by-products) should at least be equally expensive or cheaper than the cost of fossil diesel at the place where the Jatropha biodiesel will be marketed. As the costs of processing Jatropha seeds to biodiesel are quite fixed the pressure (for profits) often will be brought back on the labor cost. In such reasoning a labor intensive cultivation process seems less appealing to me. By being a labor intensive crop, Jatropha’ feasibility seems to be reduced to only the very poor regions of the world where there are no other opportunities.
Are my views blurred by something?
1 Francis et al. 2005 DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-8947.2005.00109.x
2 Achten et al. 2008 DOI: 10.1016/j.biombioe.2008.03.003
Sound reasonable to me, and it’s great to see a wider perspective being taken.
With regards to employment, I think a free-market economy approach is (largely) reasonable: if people are prepared to work, then let them. Of course, they need to be aware of the opportunities, costs etc. I would defer to those more knowledeable as I am, sadly, only a geneticist
Biologically, I guess the problem is to breed the crop to synchronize harvesting, which would then reduce labour. Do you think that can be done by next Tuesday?
So if I understand correctly, the fruit of this plant/tree are not edible. It’s only the seeds that are used for biofuel/oil production? It would be nice if the farmers could reap some sort of consumable from their work, beyond the oil.
What is the payment scheme for the farmers of these fields? It is per volume of oil pressed? I think the start-up costs of this enterprise also need to be taken into account. If rural workers have to scrape and borrow to build or buy the initial seed stocks and oil pressing equipment, and then spend the next 10 years trying to pay off the initial investment, then the whole scheme seems detrimental to the community.
The advantage of the tree is that the farmer can harvest from the same trees year after year, unlike corn and other biofuel crops. I imagine labour costs would be greatly reduced after the trees have matured!
@ bob:
if people are prepared to work, then let them. Of course, they need to be aware of the opportunities, costs etc.
The lack of information and extension is probably exactly what is the problem nowadays. So, the ones managing the access of information, manage the farmers’ willingness to work… (which is of course… business as usual)
Do you think that can be done by next Tuesday?
I’ve put it on my to-do-list! Please remind my when it slipped my mind.
@Anna:
@James: True, J. curcas is a perennial which fruits every year, like Oil Palm, Neem, … After maturing of the trees, the relative share of the labor cost (in the economic sense) in the end product price will be reduced indeed. But, would it still be the case if you take account of all social costs of this labor into account as well?
Further, I sometimes have a strange feeling about perenniality of crops, though, certainly with crops with lifespans of >25yrs. According to me they have an important opportunity cost: namely the flexibility of the farmer to shift from product to product according to the market situation.