By Ric V. Obedencio
What does it profit for a farmer/trader if he plants Tuba-tuba (Jatrophas) in big areas of land but losses his investment instead when there are no takers?
This was how provincial board member Dr. Beinvenido Molina described his experience while growing jatropha in his landholdings in Alicia. He said he was then optimistic when he started growing the plant and expected big that somebody would someday buy his produce.
But all his efforts and capital were an exercise in futility and started to think again since nobody would take the produce of his plantation of about 3 hectares of fully grown jatropha. He said in an interview that he decided to uproot them and replaced them with coconuts.
But he is not the only one who appeared being duped of promises of good investment. He said he only had three hectares but Congress Roberto Cajes, who also invested in the growing of alternative bio-fuel sources, had about 20 hectares. He said Cajes also did what he did to his jatropha farm.
It will be recalled that the previous provincial administration launched what could be a “major project which will see Bohol province putting aside 10,00 hectares for a jatropha plantation with a P25 million funding from the Philippine National Oil Company-Alternative Fuels Corporation.â€
“The province is embarking into bio-fuel production projects that will not only reduce air pollution but reforest denuded and unproductive forestlands and provide jobs and livelihood opportunities for Boholanos. Targeted are the jatropha plantation for the biofuel additive to diesel and red algae plantation for aquaculture sites all over Bohol’s coastline for bio-ethanol, which is an additive to gasoline. Governor Aumentado expects Bohol to become the country’s biofuel capital once these two projects are in full swing,†said a news article published earlier.
It was seen that the fate of bio-ethanol project with seaweeds algae as raw materials for bio-fuel might also befall to jatropha as well.
Then Governor Erico Aumentado likewise launched the bio-ethanol with signing of the a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with South Korea’s Dr. Gyungsoo Kim, inventor of the ethanol extraction process. His company, Biolsystems Co., Ltd., aims to establish a $100 million ethanol extraction facility in Talibon town. Unfortunately, due to howl of the people affected particularly seaweed farmers in Talibon town and neighboring towns, the project was stalled.
Utilizing idle lands, Bohol is one of the provinces/places being groomed as source of jatropha raw materials for bio-fuel. The other places are Cagayan de Oro, Nueva Ecija, Negros, Siquijor and Quezon.
Based on the study, “oil extracted from jatropha nuts can be refined and can be used to operate power plants, generators, as well as be used for cooking oil. “Jatropha seed cakes or the part of the nut that will be left behind after the extraction may also be used to supplement coal used to fire power plants.â€
Based on the biodiesel law, planting jatropha as an alternative to diesel fuel is in order. “Jatropha biodiesel is cheaper by 30 percent to 40 percent compared to diesel,†the study said.
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