Seeking jatropha success model

04 November, 2007

Keningau: The Sabah Land Development Board is looking for a success model for the implementation of jatropha curcas cultivation on a commercial scale as another programme to eradicate rural hardcore poverty in the interior of the State. The crop has shown a great potential to produce oil for bio-diesel production.

The Board, which has been entrusted by the State Government with pioneering this project in the State, hopes to find the right ingredients through three trial plots it had started jointly with other parties.

SLDB General Manager, Jhuvarri Majid, said for this purpose SLDB has opened up its own commercial trial plot of about two acres at its estate in Binakaan where a collection of local and imported species are being planted and tested.

He said the collection of local species was brought in from various districts throughout Sabah where jatropha curcas could be found including Tenom, Bingkor, Tambunan, Kudat and Kota Marudu.

The imported ones are brought in from the peninsula as well as Indonesia, where jatropha curcas is commonly grown and has become part of the village industry in certain areas.

"We want to see which of these species has the best potential to be grown on a big commercial scale. This is important before we proceed to plant it as part of our programme to uplift the living condition of the rural hardcore poor, which is in line with the State Government's halatuju of development," he told the Daily Express recently.

"The main problem of jatropha is that it has to be mechanised as it is too labour intensive particularly the process of plucking the fruits," said Jhuvarri. "That's why we need some sort of a success model. Once we have the success model with all the relevant data about which materials can give us the maximum oil content, the costing and so on, then we will duplicate and multiply it on a much bigger scale."

The board has also started a joint-venture with the Agriculture Department to do the research required at the Sabah Agriculture Park in Lagud Sebrang, Tenom.

"Under the smart partnership, the department will do all the relevant research while we provide all the material needed," he said. At the same time he said another joint venture between SLDB and Borneo Alam Ria which is a subsidiary of an India-based business group which specialises in jatropha curcas-based pharmaceutical production is also in progress in Sinua, Sook.

"So we have three trial and research centres in progress. Two of these are on a small scale while the trial plot in Sinua is on a bit bigger scale involving a 15-acre land and using a Technology brought in directly from India," said Jhuvarri.

"So we have all these combinations of research in progress to get for us the best formula or a success model É a model means the right materials, the costing and how it can be commercialised and we are concentrating on this right now," he said.

On other parties which have also started their own jatropha curcas cultivation programme on a big scale, Jhuvarri said they had actually invited SLDB to participate but "we told them we are working on our own first before teaming up."

A VISIT to the jatropha curcas commercial trial plot in Binakaan which was opened in September this year showed some of the local and imported jatropha curcas seedlings have already been planted in the trial plot.

The testing is done by either planting these seedlings in the plot by plantlet or by stem or by direct planting techniques.

The work is carried out under the supervision of the SLDB officer-in-charge of the jatropha curcas project in Binakaan, Makunsai Murudan, who is going around collecting samples of jatropha curcas seedlings from district to district for the purpose.

"The reason we collect local seedlings from every district where the plant is found is to check which of them is more productive and suitable than those imported from the peninsula or Indonesia," he said.

Based on his findings so far, the local jatropha curcas plant collection at the plot presently shows almost similar growth patterns but depending on the weather conditions and water availability.

"Jatropha curcas needs a place where there is enough water and reasonable hot weather," he said, adding he has collected samples from Sook, Keningau, Tenom, Tambunan, Kota Belud, Kota Marudu and Kudat and would be going to the East Coast to get more samples.

But based on his finding most jatropha curcas plants are found in Kota Marudu where they are popularly grown as fencing for the village houses.

SLDB is pioneering the commercial jatropha curcas cultivation in the State, as part of its programme to assist the government eradicate hardcore poverty in the rural areas through development of land with commercial crops. It currently has more than 10 estates under its care which have been cultivated with oil palm under its three development programmes - the leasing scheme, the pre-land land development and clustered land development - throughout Sabah, involving more than 2,600 participants.

These programmes, implemented since its inception, have helped the participants earn an income beyond the hardcore poverty line. There are participants now earning a lucrative four-figure income.