Jatropha Oil Production
The seeds from the
Jatropha plant are harvested and pressed with relatively simple equipment and the resulting oil is treated to produce fuel that can be used in diesel engines without requiring modification to the engine. This equipment can be easily obtained by potential farmers, even those living in very rural areas of impoverished countries, thus the potential to increase production from these poor area is immense.
Waste Products Make Effective Fertilizer
After the oil is extracted from the
Jatropha seeds, the remaining waste products have potential of their own. This waste can be used as biomass to fuel electric generation stations or can be made into press cakes, a fertilizer that can even be used to fertilize the existing Jatropha plants from which they came. Composted Jatropha biomass can be also used in liquid or powdered form as an additive to other organic fertilizer enhancing it.
Jatropha fertilizer press cakes and fertilizers with a jatropha component have been shown to improve growth, produce more plants and enhance the nutritional quality of test crops grown with jatropha. This form of fertilizer has also been shown to be effective in controlling pest and disease as well.
Ecological and economical benefits of Jatropha fertilizer products
Using Jatropha fertilizer products are both ecologically and economically sensible alternatives to traditional chemical formulas. Organic fertilizers are more environmentally friendly than synthetic fertilizers as they do not introduce synthetic molecules that could be potentially harmful to the soil or groundwater, cutting back on the pollution that traditional agriculture often creates.
Economically, Jatropha fertilizers are an ideal choice because they are part of a continuous cycle of replenishing the area with the products of what has been taken from it. This is immensely more economical than purchasing synthetic fertilizers because there is very little cost of procurement. Because most of the processing of Jatropha oil happens locally, the fertilizer products can be returned to the local producers, thus eliminating the cost of transporting synthetic fertilizer to these areas which are often very rural and sometimes difficult to access. The cost of producing effective fertilizers for Jatropha plantations in also much less expensive when Jatropha fertilizer is used, because not only is the process by which it is created simple and inexpensive, it also produces another very profitable product, bio-diesel.
This cycle of oil production and refertilization of crops makes for an ideal financial investment. The costs of producing Jatropha oil are low and the returns are great. The deal is made even sweeter by using the byproducts to effectively improve the existing crops making jatropha a cost-effective alternative to traditional investment vehicles. As an added bonus, the environment benefits greatly from this cycle because it eliminates the need for synthetic fertilizers by replacing the more expensive synthetics with cheaper high-quality organic fertilizers that have much less negative impact on the local environment.
