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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on abject lands throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.

A jatropha rush occurred, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields caused plantation failures almost everywhere. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, depends on splitting the yield problem and resolving the harmful land-use issues linked with its original failure.

The sole staying big jatropha curcas plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been attained and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.


At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its pledge as a sustainable source of biofuel that could be grown on degraded, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields fell flat.

Now, after years of research study and development, the sole remaining big plantation focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha comeback is on.

"All those companies that failed, embraced a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the mistakes of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom might bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are hesitant, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is vital to gain from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by poor yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale provides lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs exploring promising brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from lawns, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous purported virtues was a capability to thrive on abject or "minimal" lands; thus, it was claimed it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.

Back then, jatropha ticked all the boxes, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed miraculous; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food due to the fact that it is toxic."

Governments, international agencies, financiers and business purchased into the hype, releasing efforts to plant, or pledge to plant, millions of hectares of jatropha. By 2008, plantations covered some 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) in Latin America, Africa and Asia, according to a market study prepared for WWF.

It didn't take long for the mirage of the miraculous biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide evaluation noted that "cultivation outpaced both scientific understanding of the crop's potential in addition to an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can prosper on marginal lands."

Projections approximated 4.7 million hectares (11.7 million acres) would be planted by 2010, and 12.8 million hectares (31.6 million acres) by 2015. However, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as anticipated yields declined to materialize. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and endure drought conditions, as declared, however yields stayed poor.

"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and potential to grow under relatively poorer conditions, produced a huge issue," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by environmental, social and economic difficulties, say specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged between 2 and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation might never be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however making use of fertilizers resulted in increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you take a look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was situated on limited land, but the concept of limited land is really evasive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over a number of years, and found that a lax definition of "limited" suggested that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... currently no one is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't indicate that no one is using it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

There are essential lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha curcas, say analysts, which need to be observed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], however sadly not of research study, and action was taken based on alleged advantages of jatropha," states Bart Muys, a teacher in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha buzz was winding down, Muys and colleagues released a paper citing crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This important requirement for in advance research study could be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his group released a paper analyzing the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel guarantee.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and limited land. But Muys's research showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary data might avoid inefficient financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other very appealing trees or plants that might work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wanted to prevent [them going] in the exact same direction of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha curcas."

Gasparatos underlines essential requirements that should be satisfied before moving ahead with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market should be available.

"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was practically undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so unusual."

How biofuel lands are obtained is also key, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities need to ensure that "guidelines are put in place to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce some of the problems we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these obstacles, some scientists still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha curcas might be a valuable biofuel solution - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some possible, but it needs to be the best material, grown in the right place, and so on," Muys said.

Mohammad Alherbawi, a postdoctoral research study fellow at Qatar's Hamad Bin Khalifa University, continues holding out hope for jatropha. He sees it as a method that Qatar might reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its use as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing continuous field studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can truly improve the soil and agricultural lands, and safeguard them against any further deterioration triggered by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar task's success still hinges on lots of elements, not least the ability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another crucial step, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

Back in Ghana, jOil is presently managing more than 1,300 hectares (1,830 acres) of jatropha, and growing a pilot plot on 300 hectares (740 acres) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research study and development have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a years back.

"We were able to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first task is to broaden our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."

Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its byproducts might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (important in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.

But it is the transportation sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually once again reopened with the energy transition drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A complete jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be finished, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "We believe any such expansion will occur, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [allowing] no competitors with food crops, nor in any way endangering food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially accountable depends on complex aspects, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say specialists. Then there's the irritating problem of attaining high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian government announced its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has stirred debate over potential consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep problem, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often unfavorable in many of the jatropha sites, due to the fact that the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.

Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay doubtful of the ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it possibly becomes so effective, that we will have a great deal of associated land-use modification," states Daniel Itzamna Avila-Ortega, co-founder of the Mexican Center of Industrial Ecology and a Ph.D. trainee with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use problems associated with growth of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not handle the private sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to producing environmental problems."

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-priced and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well suited to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays worried about prospective environmental costs.

He recommends limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in truly bad soils in requirement of remediation. "Jatropha might be one of those plants that can grow in very sterilized wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are higher than the potential benefits."

Jatropha's global future remains unpredictable. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus climate change can just be unlocked, say many specialists, by preventing the list of problems related to its very first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he says, "to team up with us to develop and broaden the supply chain of jatropha."

Banner image: Jatropha curcas trees in Hawai'i. Image by Forest and Kim Starr through Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts

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