It is people like Fred Pearce himself that ignite a new Jatropha hype by writing articles full with suggestions, assumptions and mistakes.
•Regarding the production in Liberia he talks about an expected 10 tonnes of fruits per ha. But fruits are not used for oil production. The oil comes from the seeds and the seeds are only 60% of the total fruit volume. 6 tonnes of seed is still a very high yield but it might be reachable in future with improved jatropha plants and good agronomy. Sun Biofuels did not crash because of poor agronomy practices. It crashed because they did not want to follow the land grabbing trail. They did everything by the book, which took them almost 3 years before they could start planting. Too little time was left to satisfy the high hope of short sighted investors.
•Greenleaf Global in Togo was indeed a scam scheme, based on the UK tax rules that allow earning your pension with almost tax-free investment schemes abroad.
•The Dutch firm Bioshape planted 500 ha Jatropha on a logged area but stopped activities in Tanzania when the biggest investor pulled out because of environmental concerns and subsequent negative press damaging their mainstream activities. (Energy production). 700 workers lost their jobs.
•What Pearce called “The new study regarding abysmal yields of small farmers in Kenya” is based on a GTZ study from 2009 that has been criticized a lot internationally because of poor statistics. The same report states that most of the Jatropha in Kenya is planted in unsuitable places.
Actually Pearce is doing the same as what I do here. Showing that you know about the subject. But there the resemblance stops. Pearce is an addict of the landgrabbing theorie. As he puts is: “”Depriving the most vulnerable of the ability to feed themselves strikes me as a crazy strategy for keeping them fed.” And “Is the wondercrop on the comeback trail? We will see. “
I do not wait and see.I think the production of biofuels is a great chance for precisely the small farmers Pearce is talking about to increase their income and improve their livelihood. Combining agrofuel production with food production increases the food yield per area, produces extra income, improves agricultural practices and in the end improves African soils . See results on https://www.jatropha.pro/intercropping.htm
It is people like Fred Pearce himself that ignite a new Jatropha hype by writing articles full with suggestions, assumptions and mistakes.
•Regarding the production in Liberia he talks about an expected 10 tonnes of fruits per ha. But fruits are not used for oil production. The oil comes from the seeds and the seeds are only 60% of the total fruit volume. 6 tonnes of seed is still a very high yield but it might be reachable in future with improved jatropha plants and good agronomy. Sun Biofuels did not crash because of poor agronomy practices. It crashed because they did not want to follow the land grabbing trail. They did everything by the book, which took them almost 3 years before they could start planting. Too little time was left to satisfy the high hope of short sighted investors.
•Greenleaf Global in Togo was indeed a scam scheme, based on the UK tax rules that allow earning your pension with almost tax-free investment schemes abroad.
•The Dutch firm Bioshape planted 500 ha Jatropha on a logged area but stopped activities in Tanzania when the biggest investor pulled out because of environmental concerns and subsequent negative press damaging their mainstream activities. (Energy production). 700 workers lost their jobs.
•What Pearce called “The new study regarding abysmal yields of small farmers in Kenya” is based on a GTZ study from 2009 that has been criticized a lot internationally because of poor statistics. The same report states that most of the Jatropha in Kenya is planted in unsuitable places.
Actually Pearce is doing the same as what I do here. Showing that you know about the subject. But there the resemblance stops. Pearce is an addict of the landgrabbing theorie. As he puts is: “”Depriving the most vulnerable of the ability to feed themselves strikes me as a crazy strategy for keeping them fed.” And “Is the wondercrop on the comeback trail? We will see. “
I do not wait and see.I think the production of biofuels is a great chance for precisely the small farmers Pearce is talking about to increase their income and improve their livelihood. Combining agrofuel production with food production increases the food yield per area, produces extra income, improves agricultural practices and in the end improves African soils . See results on https://www.jatropha.pro/intercropping.htm