Our long-time friend Dave Deppner has a few concerns about the confusing stories he hears and reads about jatropha. Dave is the founding chairman of Trees for the Future, an NGO based in the United States, that has been planting trees in the world’s most degraded lands to improve the living standards of people in those communities.

He has read, for instance, about planting jatropha as a monocrop in big plantations. He is worried about this because such plantations will only result in low production and high incidence of diseases. Plantations that will quickly fall apart. He believes that it is very necessary to integrate a lot of other trees, such as ipil-ipil, to rebuild local soils.

“What we have done so far, which is mostly in West Africa, is integrating jatropha with other trees and plants to develop symbiotic relationships,” he said. Most of the jatropha trees there produce more than a liter of oil a year.

Dave has also heard people saying that jatropha grows well even on degraded land. He says that’s not true. Jatropha is a soil-depleting crop and requires adding nutrients and water-retention capability to the soil if it is to last for very long.

Our projection, he says, is to plant approximately 2,000 trees of some 55 species per hectare and that most of these trees will be sustainably harvested on a regular basis. About 400 of these trees may be jatropha curcas.

Dave is integrating jatropha in a tree planting project in Zambales.