Project Partners

JATROPHA AFRICA    (http://www.jatrophaafrica.com)

Representative: Clive Coker

Jatropha Africa is a biofuel feedstock company, founded in 2006. Our commercial activities include:

• supplying Jatropha seeds for cultivation and for oil expelling,
• growing seedlings in our nurseries,
• harvesting, supplying Jatropha oil for Pure Plant Oil and for biodiesel refining companies.

We manage extensive land agreements and farmers’ networks, working in partnership with rural African communities, assisting people in their efforts to improve their own lives. Besides the standard Jatropha curcus seed which is found widely across West Africa, we also offer an improved variety of J. curcus which is well suited to being cultivated on land that is marginal to food production, and provides a high yield of seeds, with high oil content.

The improved variety of seed

shows visible high yielding benefits over the standard variety found in West Africa.  
• grows more vigorously,
• produces a small earlier harvest, and
• provides higher seed yields over the years leading up to plant maturity.

For the past 4 years we have managed our own nursery and 100 Hectare Jatropha farm. We are negotiating a joint venture with a European biodiesel company with plans to expand our method of Jatropha cultivation onto the 50,000 Hectares of land over which Jatropha Africa has agricultural rights. As part of this proposed joint venture, we will be setting up a commercial scale Jatropha oil-expelling facility.  A joint venture between Jatropha Africa and European partners makes sense; although we have yet to find efficient, effective oil expelling facilities that can produce cold expelled Jatropha oil locally, machinery suited to this task is available and used in vegetable oil production in Europe. Also, although there are no commercial scale biodiesel production facilities located in Ghana, bio-diesel refineries using well developed technologies are in operation in Europe. In addition, pelletising, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion, bio-ethanol from woody farm wastes are technologies which are complementary to non-food biofuel production in Africa. Jatropha Africa’s contribution to the ACP S&T Programme’s Biofuel Project results from invaluable experience gained through the negotiation of land lease agreements in areas where commercial food production has not been viable, and the formation of a company in Ghana, with directors who combine European and West African approaches to business and operation management, including European business management experience and Ghana-based farm management experience, and Jatropha cultivation know-how, demonstrated on a 100 Hectare farm. The company is also a supplier of an improved variety of Jatropha seed – an asset which is in short supply whilst large scale Jatropha plantations are being established, and has established good links with relevant government ministries and agencies, e.g. Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, and the administration body for the lake and rivers in the area which is well suited to non-food biofuel feedstock production. The company also has good links with approx 40 Ghana based Jatropha farmers, and an understanding of establishing trust, and maintaining goodwill  with  Tribal  councils  as  land  freeholders  and  sources  of labour.  Lastly, our co-founders Clive Coker and Ohene Akoto are considering forming a trade association for biofuel farmers and producers in Ghana.