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Farming Fuel
Indigenous shrub can turn RP into fuel exporting country
An indigenous shrub whose seeds are rich in oil may someday make the Philippines a fuel-exporting country.
Jatropha cursas, a drought-resistant and perennially available shrub known as “tuba-tuba” in Tagalog-speaking regions, is now being planted en masse in various parts of the country in what could be considered a gold-rush-like phenomenon brought about by the skyrocketing price of petroleum in the world market.
Rodolfo Noel “Jun” Lozada, president and CEO of Philippine Forest Corp. (PhilForest), a new government-owned corporation tasked to propagate jatropha, said farmers are excited at the prospect of literally “growing” fuel right in their land.
“Jatropha can one day free us from importing oil for fuel,” said Lozada who operates under the Natural Resources Development Corp., the corporate arm of the Department of Natural Resources.
Lozada said they are fulfilling their mandate in two stages, first by propagating jatropha via a large-scale production of seeds and seedlings, and second, by spearheading the processing of biodiesel in partnership with other state agencies or institutions, farmer groups, landowners and agribusiness enterprises.
To encourage active private sector participation, Lozada said PhilForest has been clothed with the power to distribute property and usufruct rights over public agricultural and forestlands, as well as provide support to beneficiaries of such lands.
Private parties can have access to idle government lands through a 25-year stewardship program in which the awardees will be required to commercially produce jatropha seeds. PhilForest is committed to buy all seeds.
Lozada is looking at a timetable of 10 to 12 years to develop jatropha plantations covering two million hectares.
“This amount of production will yield some 5.6 billion liters of oil a year,” he said.
How viable is it?
Jatropha has an economic life of 35 years and thrives well in marginal soil such as sandy, gravelly or saline. It is not affected by high temperature, needs little or no maintenance at all, and grows quickly. Its seeds, from which oil is extracted, can be harvested after a year.
Lozada said a hectare of land planted to 2,500 trees of jatropha would yield five tons of seeds, which, in turn, can produce 1,430 liters of crude or unprocessed oil that can be used directly to power low-RPM diesel engines such as hand tractors, water pumps and threshers.
He noted that even at a petroleum price of only $46 a barrel in the world market, investors are already assured of a 20-percent return on investment in jatropha. And this figure goes up steadily in light of the worsening crisis in the Middle East, with petroleum now at $78 a barrel and is forecast to reach $100 by year’s end.
And oil is not the only thing one can get from jatropha. According to Lozada, the press cake from the processed seeds is a good fertilizer, and the sediment from the extracted oil can be used for soap making.
