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FREE CONTENT: Jatropha Schools |
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 Worker with Jatropha tree, India. Courtsey D1 Oils First published in Infocus: Jatropha, a supplement to Cleantech magazine, May 2008, Copyright Cleantech Investor 2008 To overcome the challenges of control over the cultivation process in an outcropping model (in terms of both yield and sustainable farming practices), Peter Hanratty, CEO of Fuelstock Ltd, has developed a novel approach which will involve setting up a series of jatropha schools which will teach ‘best practice’ in jatropha cultivation. Farmers will be required to attend weekly theory and practical lessons at the school, which will be situated next to the nursery/seed supply at Fuelstock’s operations, initially in Madagascar – but ultimately across Africa and in India.
Hanratty views the best solution for the funding of outcropping jatropha models to be a combination of different financing methods. He believes that equity funding is the most appropriate, but that it should be combined with ‘soft’ funding – NGO or government backing – to provide working capital for the farmers; and bank funding for the engineering hardware such as crushing equipment. In the Fuelstock model, it is intended that the NGO/government financing will be made available only to farmers who have graduated from the jatropha school.
Separately, Fuelstock plans to address the problem of lack of data and information flow between the jatropha industry and the end user by launching a round table to create a platform for the formulation of a set of industry guidelines. |
