No buyers of products: Bohol officials lose jatropha investments

TAGBILARAN CITY , Philippines - — Two Bohol government officials were forced to uproot or discard their respective plantations of tuba-tuba (jatropha) because there have been no buyers of their products.

Provincial Board Member Beinvenido Molina said he invested by planting jatropha in his 3-hectare lot in Alicia town with the optimism of big returns when somebody buys his products later on.

However, when his plants were fully grown and ready for harvesting, there was no buyer prompting him to decide to uproot all of these plants and replace these with coconuts.

He was not alone though in losing in this investment. Representative Congress Roberto Cajes had also invested on jatropha plantation in his 20-hectare farm, and he too found no takers of his ready-for-harvest products so the congressman decided to uproot every plant, as what Molina did.

It can be recalled that the previous provincial administration launched what could be a "major project which will see Bohol province putting aside 10,000 hectares for jatropha plantation with a P25 million funding from the Philippine National Oil Company-Alternative Fuels Corporation."

The provincial government at the time was quoted by a newspaper saying: "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 Erico Aumentado expects Bohol to become the country's biofuel capital once these two projects are in full swing."

Aumentado also launched the bio-ethanol project by signing a memorandum of understanding with South Korea's Dr. Gyungsoo Kim, inventor of the ethanol extraction process, whose company, Biolsystems Co., Ltd., aimed to establish a $100 million ethanol extraction facility in Talibon town.

However, due to protests of affected seaweed farmers in Talibon and neighboring towns, the project was stalled.

Now, the fate of bio-ethanol project with seaweeds algae as raw materials for bio-fuel might also befall to jatropha as well.

Utilizing idle lands, Bohol is one of the provinces or places being groomed as source of jatropha to be the 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."

Based on the bio-diesel 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.