A new avenue of commercial farming is opening up for rural people. A tree that yields cleaner, cheaper energy has the potential to pull thousands from the poverty trap.For more than 50 years, rural South Africans have grown the jatropha carcus tree, known to thousands of KwaZulu-Natalians as maluku, for medicinal purposes. Little did they know that the tree's seeds bear bio-diesel, with the capability to run any diesel car, truck or generator without the engine needing modification. The fuel, once extracted from the seed, is thought to produce up to 80 percent less carbon-dioxide than conventional diesel.Some environmentalists and scientists have hailed the plant. The trees' potential has also attracted the attention of private investors. 'Although jatropha is considered invasive' However, questions about the commercial viability of cultivating the tree, its toxicity, and the environmental impact of growing what is an alien species, remain unresolved.In June, KwaZulu-Natal Minister of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs Gabriel Ndabandaba appointed a jatropha task team to research the production of the crop in the province.Team Chairperson Ben Korateng said that since the 20-man team was formed concern about the tree's commercial viability, its impact on the environment, and doubts about which regions were suitable for cultivation, have surfaced.Task team Assistant Manager Sandile Mhlongo said, "We've had investors wanting to get involved because they know about the commercial gain of this tree, but the government has set guidelines so that there's social upliftment and poverty alleviation within marginalised communities."But Korateng cautions that "the department doesn't want to be irresponsible when planting this crop. Maybe during 2006 the government will start allowing it to be widely grown."We are working with universities, government departments, non-governmental organisations and students from the Owen Sithole College of Agriculture, in Empangeni, to advance our research," said Korateng, but added that a shortage of funding remained a problem.He said the team had found that thousands of rural communities had been growing the plant for medicinal purposes for more than 50 years."Once we told them about the other by-products, they wanted to grow more and get involved in the commercial side... although they were growing one or two trees," he said.The department is buying seeds from growers at R1 a kilogram but is anxious that production of the seed should not be at the expense of food."We have urged them to grow it in their marginal soil that is not used to grow edible crops," said Korateng. He said the team had established links with people who use the tree for a variety of other purposes, elsewhere in the world. In Mali the tree has a number of uses. They "press the bio-diesel out and use it as a source of energy for electricity, and with the by-products they make feeds, soaps, insect-repellent and candles", said Korateng. Its by-products also yield glycerol sediment, a cosmetic ingredient. Mhlongo said jatropha is considered preferable to many other crops in South Africa as a source of bio-diesel because it has already been growing in Africa for years and is therefore thought to pose less of an ecological risk."Although jatropha is considered invasive, we have been tasked to prove this because there is no concrete evidence," he said.To make bio-diesel from jatropha, its small seeds are collected and, after two years of maturing, are crushed. The seeds can easily be picked by hand.The trees need only about 500mm of rain a year to survive "so they will not interfere with the country's scarce water resources", said Korateng.He conceded that jatropha is invasive and poisonous "but like most plants, if its planting is controlled, as we are trying to do, it will never be harmful to the environment or living species", he said."The plant is poisonous. It produces a pungent smell to protect itself against animals, but the toxicity levels are very low and harmless - that is where the plant gets its pesticide properties," said Korateng. He was responding to findings put to him that the plant is among the 10 plants most often blamed for poisoning people, mainly children, in South Africa.Martin Magwaza, a nurse at the Poison Centre at St Augustine's Hospital, in Durban, said the plant was moderately toxic, but its seeds were "very toxic and deadly depending on the number of seeds you've ingested".Poisoning symptoms, which include convulsions, difficulty in breathing, corrosion of the mouth and stomach, vomiting and nausea, are treatable with antacids.The Agro Forest Bio Energy Association, a Section 21, not-for-profit, company, is investigating other bio-diesel-bearing trees such as the moringa oleifera, the ximenia caffra, and the pappea capensis, but these need more water than jatropha and jatropha can grow almost anywhere, even in dry, rocky areas.The association has said it was possible for a family of four to six people to earn a profit of R2 000 to R4 000 a month from the bio-diesel produced from a 25ha plot.Apart from its potential to cut fuel bills, interest in bio-diesel is being stoked by a global campaign to reduce emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.On Thursday, Russia formally ratified the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, clearing the way for the environmental pact to come into force in February 2005. The move means that from February 16, industrialised nations that are signatories to the pact will be legally bound to meet quantitative targets for reducing or limiting emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.The protocol was signed by the then US president Bill Clinton's administration, European Union member states and Japan in 1997. But in March 2001, US President W George Bush announced his government did not support it and pulled his country out of the deal. According to the protocol, industrialised nations will have to pay for the pollution they cause in carbon credits. Countries that plant and sustain trees will be able to sell carbon credits to industrialised nations that are short of these credits.Korateng said South Africa could profit from this, as low-emission fuels, such as bio-diesel, are environmentally-friendly.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Big fuel plans for little seeds
A new avenue of commercial farming is opening up for rural people. A tree that yields cleaner, cheaper energy has the potential to pull thousands from the poverty trap.For more than 50 years, rural South Africans have grown the jatropha carcus tree, known to thousands of KwaZulu-Natalians as maluku, for medicinal purposes. Little did they know that the tree's seeds bear bio-diesel, with the capability to run any diesel car, truck or generator without the engine needing modification. The fuel, once extracted from the seed, is thought to produce up to 80 percent less carbon-dioxide than conventional diesel.Some environmentalists and scientists have hailed the plant. The trees' potential has also attracted the attention of private investors. 'Although jatropha is considered invasive' However, questions about the commercial viability of cultivating the tree, its toxicity, and the environmental impact of growing what is an alien species, remain unresolved.In June, KwaZulu-Natal Minister of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs Gabriel Ndabandaba appointed a jatropha task team to research the production of the crop in the province.Team Chairperson Ben Korateng said that since the 20-man team was formed concern about the tree's commercial viability, its impact on the environment, and doubts about which regions were suitable for cultivation, have surfaced.Task team Assistant Manager Sandile Mhlongo said, "We've had investors wanting to get involved because they know about the commercial gain of this tree, but the government has set guidelines so that there's social upliftment and poverty alleviation within marginalised communities."But Korateng cautions that "the department doesn't want to be irresponsible when planting this crop. Maybe during 2006 the government will start allowing it to be widely grown."We are working with universities, government departments, non-governmental organisations and students from the Owen Sithole College of Agriculture, in Empangeni, to advance our research," said Korateng, but added that a shortage of funding remained a problem.He said the team had found that thousands of rural communities had been growing the plant for medicinal purposes for more than 50 years."Once we told them about the other by-products, they wanted to grow more and get involved in the commercial side... although they were growing one or two trees," he said.The department is buying seeds from growers at R1 a kilogram but is anxious that production of the seed should not be at the expense of food."We have urged them to grow it in their marginal soil that is not used to grow edible crops," said Korateng. He said the team had established links with people who use the tree for a variety of other purposes, elsewhere in the world. In Mali the tree has a number of uses. They "press the bio-diesel out and use it as a source of energy for electricity, and with the by-products they make feeds, soaps, insect-repellent and candles", said Korateng. Its by-products also yield glycerol sediment, a cosmetic ingredient. Mhlongo said jatropha is considered preferable to many other crops in South Africa as a source of bio-diesel because it has already been growing in Africa for years and is therefore thought to pose less of an ecological risk."Although jatropha is considered invasive, we have been tasked to prove this because there is no concrete evidence," he said.To make bio-diesel from jatropha, its small seeds are collected and, after two years of maturing, are crushed. The seeds can easily be picked by hand.The trees need only about 500mm of rain a year to survive "so they will not interfere with the country's scarce water resources", said Korateng.He conceded that jatropha is invasive and poisonous "but like most plants, if its planting is controlled, as we are trying to do, it will never be harmful to the environment or living species", he said."The plant is poisonous. It produces a pungent smell to protect itself against animals, but the toxicity levels are very low and harmless - that is where the plant gets its pesticide properties," said Korateng. He was responding to findings put to him that the plant is among the 10 plants most often blamed for poisoning people, mainly children, in South Africa.Martin Magwaza, a nurse at the Poison Centre at St Augustine's Hospital, in Durban, said the plant was moderately toxic, but its seeds were "very toxic and deadly depending on the number of seeds you've ingested".Poisoning symptoms, which include convulsions, difficulty in breathing, corrosion of the mouth and stomach, vomiting and nausea, are treatable with antacids.The Agro Forest Bio Energy Association, a Section 21, not-for-profit, company, is investigating other bio-diesel-bearing trees such as the moringa oleifera, the ximenia caffra, and the pappea capensis, but these need more water than jatropha and jatropha can grow almost anywhere, even in dry, rocky areas.The association has said it was possible for a family of four to six people to earn a profit of R2 000 to R4 000 a month from the bio-diesel produced from a 25ha plot.Apart from its potential to cut fuel bills, interest in bio-diesel is being stoked by a global campaign to reduce emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.On Thursday, Russia formally ratified the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, clearing the way for the environmental pact to come into force in February 2005. The move means that from February 16, industrialised nations that are signatories to the pact will be legally bound to meet quantitative targets for reducing or limiting emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.The protocol was signed by the then US president Bill Clinton's administration, European Union member states and Japan in 1997. But in March 2001, US President W George Bush announced his government did not support it and pulled his country out of the deal. According to the protocol, industrialised nations will have to pay for the pollution they cause in carbon credits. Countries that plant and sustain trees will be able to sell carbon credits to industrialised nations that are short of these credits.Korateng said South Africa could profit from this, as low-emission fuels, such as bio-diesel, are environmentally-friendly.
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