Demand for energy is increasing worldwide. According to the world energy outlook, the demand is expected to increase by 1.7%. Increasing demand for fossil fuels, agriculture and fire wood for energy are causing landslide degradation in many developing countries. Land degradation has become a major threat to world food security with about 2000 million ha of soil (15% of earth's land area) have been degraded due to human activities.
Increasing population density and decline in availability of productive land due to degradation would further fuel the large-scale migration of people into the already overpopulated metropolis in Asia and Africa in future, unless urgent corrective measures are adopted to increase rural incomes and generate new perspectives in the weaker regions. Rapid population increase has lead to huge increases in the energy demand. Highly dense developing countries have to depend on other countries for fossil fuels as they don’t have sources of fossil fuels. Thus energy security has become a key issue for many countries. Increased consumption of energy and fuels has resulted in increased release of green house gases into the atmosphere which is mainly due to transport-related pollutant emissions. These have already exceeded critical levels in many overcrowded metropolis in the developing countries. The increased presence of green-house gases and the resultant climate change has dramatically increased the number of natural disasters that cost the world around $60 billion. The severest effects of the natural calamities are known to affect the poorest people in the developing countries the most.
It is in this background, production of bio- diesel from Jatropha plantations set up on degraded land become highly relevant for energy importing developing countries with large tracts of land already degraded or under the threat of degradation. There is no loss of land for food production or other purposes as only degraded land where profitable food production would not be possible are foreseen to be used. On the other hand lack of urgent protective measures would lead to expansion of the degraded areas and hence intervention have to be taken up on a priority basis.
Jatropha as an income generation
Jatropha plantation is labor intensive hence creates jobs for poor indigenous people who otherwise are forced either to migrate to dense cities or are forced to live poor lives. Nepal has huge amount of degraded and waste land in rural areas that can be utilized for jatropha plantation.
Jatropha cultivation has a huge potential to alleviate soil degradation, desertification and deforestation by greening this vast wasteland while providing employment to rural extremely poor and marginalized communities. In this back ground, Everest Biodiesel Company Pvt. Ltd. in cooperation with DC Nepal and with a financial support from The Embassy of Finland is conducting program in five districts of Nepal for mass scale plantation of Jatropha curcas. Around 1500 households have actively participated in this program. To date, the company has successfully planted Jatropha in around 150 ha. area in five districts and further planning to extend these programs in other districts.
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