Zimbabwe: Government Sets Jatropha Target - 80,000 hectares

Jatropha curcas is an excellent energy crop that thrives on marginal soils and survives droughts. Zimbabwe - a country suffering under a severe food, climate and energy crisis - is implementing part of its renewable energy policy by planting 80,000 hectares of the small shrub by the end of the year. It will provide an excellent test-case to see whether Jatropha really keeps its promises.

80,000 hectares does not sound like much, and indeed, it comes down to a mere 2000 barrels a day (to put it in petro-terms). But for Zimbabwe, each barrel it doesn't have to import, counts.


The target was announced last week by the director of Renewable Energy and Conversation in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Mrs Elizabeth Muguti. She was speaking at a field day held by Environment Africa and Tree Africa at Mr Chimusoro's farm in Beatrice last Friday to assess progress of the project. Mr Chimusoro is one of the first farmers in Zimbabwe to embark on massive jatropha production and has since planted more than 1 000 jatropha plants at his 480 hectare farm. "According to our national project by the year 2010, 10 percent of our diesel will come from jatropha. For us to achieve this we have set a target of 80 000 hectares to be put under jatropha," Mrs Muguti said.

She said Government has also set targets for each province to produce at least 10 000 trees of jatropha by the end of 2006. "We can achieve this and all we have to do is for every farmer to grow the plant," she said. Mrs Muguti said Government has also come up with incentives such as out-growers schem es for farmers growing more than five hectares of jatropha. "The Government, through the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, has since launched a programme to support farmers who want to grow more than five hectares of jatropha. "There is an out-growers scheme for farmers interested in growing jatropha. Farmers get free seed and support on how to grow the plant," she said.

Mrs Muguti noted that Government was set to announce more incentives to encourage farmers to embark on jatropha farming. She also said although the main focus was to extract bio-diesel from the multi-purpose plant, Government would also soon look into other products such as soap and organic fertilizers that can be produced from the plant.

In a speech read on his behalf by his ministry's deputy secretary, Mr Irvin Kunene, the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Cde Francis Nhema, said it was pleasing to note that Government's calls for farmers to grow jatropha were now paying dividends. He said Zimbabwe like several countries in the world was faced with fuel shortages caused by a range of factors including disturbances in oil-producing countries and import costs. "The Government has come up with alternative measures in terms of fuel supply and one of these measures is the production of bio-diesel from jatropha," Cde Nhema said.

He said feasibility studies have shown that it is possible and viable to produce bio-diesel from jatropha and there are several benefits that can be derived from the plant. The minister also took the opportunity to mark the beginning of the green ribbon week. The green ribbon week is commemorated during the week on which the World Environment Day falls and this year it is being celebrated from June 5 to 11 June. Mr Chimusoro also demonstrated how the bio-diesel extracted from jatropha could run a Lister T52 engine used by most grinding mills and water pumps in rural areas. Other farmers from the district also had a chance to sample some soap produced fro m jatropha that was made by Tree Africa.

The Herald (Harare).