Management Services
Management Services
JATROPOWER personnel and its networks possess vast experience in supporting the establishment and maintenance of jatropha plantations in Asia and Africa.
Alongside, the company has been intensively studying the plant during the past 15 years in its own research farms and analysing its performance on client sites in India and elsewhere under different conditions.
This combined experience has resulted in the development of commercially relevant knowledge on various aspects of Jatropha plantation projects such as:
Development of business models and identifying the critical aspects site by site
Site evaluation
Crop calendar establishment
Plantation strategy
Management, maintenance, fertilisation and pest control
Harvesting
Seed quality control
Training on all aspects of jatropha cultivation to clients’ staff using training presentations
JATROPOWER can offer this knowledge as a package or as specific items according to the requirement of the clients.
JATROPOWER offers its clients comprehensive jatropha cultivation manuals that address all aspects of the Jatropha cultivation including nurseries, plantation and maintenance, harvesting, pest and disease control etc.
Special attention is required in particular during the first 2-3 years. The more marginal the land is on which Jatropha is planted, the more attention is needed to secure good results during these initial years. Depending on the agronomical conditions, among others the following factors have to be evaluated:
need for life-saving irrigation in case there are large hot intervals between rains
supplementation with nutrients depending on their availability in the soil
maintenance of suitable plant architecture
weed control during and after the rainy season
Management, maintenance, fertilisation and pest control
Harvesting
Seed quality control
Training on all aspects of jatropha cultivation to clients’ staff using training presentations
Plantation profitability assessment tool
Key determinants of Jatropha plantation profitability
JATROPOWER has designed a business model tool to calculate the profitability of Jatropha plantation projects.
The profitability obviously depends on the location and factors such as soil quality, meteorological conditions, labour cost and management practices.
However, profitability also depends heavily on certain basic decisions to be taken before starting with a plantation. To see to which extent such decisions define the overall profitability, sensitivities can be calculated in the business model using the tool.
The most important single value generator is the type of seed used for the plantation:
It is decisive whether edible or non-edible seeds are planted. This due to the fact that after the extraction of the oil, the seed kernel meal from edible seeds can be used and sold as animal feed with a corresponding value. Screw pressed seed cake from non-edible jatropha seeds can only be used as fertilizer. With edible seeds, revenue from a plantation may be 25% higher compared to non-edible seeds, provided high yield edible seed is available.
Also, the seed yield is very important. It is practically not relevant how much the seeds for plantation cost as long as these produce a slightly higher yield. Even a modest 5% increase in yield may economically justify a cost twice as much for the seeds than usual due to the perennial character of Jatropha.
JATROPOWER is marketing cultivars that yielded at least 4 times higher compared to the average yield of wild collected seeds and hybrids that yield up to 6 times higher quantity of seeds compared to the average of wild jatropha genotypes.
Higher yield means correspondingly higher revenue at only slightly higher cost for plantation establishment and management.
Very important is the labour cost for the overall profitability of the plantation, even with a high degree of automation. This factor has to be considered when deciding in which country a plantation shall be set up.
Not as decisive for the profitability are investments in land clearing and equipment.
Not very important for relative profitability is the size of the plantation, provided a minimum area is covered to make the project worthwhile.
The degree to which certain value generators influence the overall profitability of a plantation project depends on the specific conditions under which it is established. Therefore, it is important to adapt the business plan tool to the specific regional/local conditions to obtain reliable insights.