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

A jatropha rush ensued, 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 polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they state, depends on cracking the yield problem and attending to the damaging land-use concerns intertwined with its original failure.

The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have 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 start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 staying big plantation focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.

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

Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are doubtful, noting that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is vital to gain from previous mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.

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

Miracle shrub, major bust

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

Back then, jatropha ticked all packages, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too lots of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not compete with food because it is toxic."

Governments, international companies, investors and companies bought into the hype, releasing efforts to plant, or promise 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 research study got ready for WWF.

It didn't take wish for the mirage of the amazing biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review noted that "cultivation exceeded both clinical understanding of the crop's potential along with an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can flourish 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 started to stop working as anticipated yields refused to emerge. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields remained poor.

"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created a very big issue," resulting in "ignored 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 problems, state professionals. 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 curcas in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation might never ever be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon benefits, however using fertilizers resulted in increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was positioned on marginal land, however the idea of marginal land is extremely elusive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the nation over a number of years, and found that a lax definition of "marginal" meant that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was often illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... presently no one is utilizing [land] for farming does not mean that no one is using it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

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

"There was a boom [in investment], however unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based upon alleged advantages of jatropha," says Bart Muys, a teacher in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha hype was winding down, Muys and colleagues published a paper mentioning essential lessons.

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

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and minimal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge spaces." Use of such cautionary information could avoid wasteful monetary speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other extremely promising trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wanted to prevent [them going] in the same instructions of premature hype and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines essential requirements that should be satisfied before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market needs to be readily available.

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

How biofuel lands are obtained is likewise key, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were purchased for production, authorities need to ensure that "standards are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to lower a few of the problems we observed."

A jatropha return?

Despite all these challenges, some researchers still believe that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel service - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

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

Mohammad Alherbawi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Qatar's Hamad Bin Khalifa University, continues holding out hope for jatropha. He sees it as a manner in which Qatar may minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its usage as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing ongoing field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can truly enhance the soil and farming lands, and secure them against any additional wear and tear brought on by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar project's success still hinges on lots of factors, not least the capability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another crucial step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the entirety 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 describes that years of research study and development have actually led to ranges 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, enhance the yield variety and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity 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 taking a look at. The fruit and its by-products could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal alternative (essential in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.

But it is the transport sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has when again resumed with the energy transition drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A complete jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be completed, however he thinks 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 really strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "We believe any such expansion will occur, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [enabling] no competition with food crops, nor in any way endangering food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially responsible depends upon intricate 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 experts. Then there's the nagging problem of attaining high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has stirred dispute over prospective consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep difficulty, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many previous plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which ended up being bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in many of the jatropha sites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he describes.

Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically 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 potentially ends up being so successful, that we will have a lot of associated land-use change," 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 actually conducted research on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use issues related to expansion of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not handle the economic sector doing whatever they want, in regards to creating environmental issues."

Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well suited to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains concerned about possible environmental expenses.

He recommends limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in genuinely poor soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha might be one of those plants that can grow in really sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery method for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are higher than the prospective advantages."

Jatropha's global future remains unpredictable. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus environment change can only be opened, state lots of experts, by preventing the list of problems related to its first boom.

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

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

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

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