Global Investment Failures and Transformations: A Review of Hyped Jatropha Spaces

Abstract

There was a heightened global interest in large-scale Jatropha cultivation for the past few decades, and this incited investment toward the crop in many developing countries. Many saw Jatropha as a green fuel that could possibly be an alternative to fossil fuel, which has adverse implications to deal with the impacts of climate change. However, Jatropha investments failed to meet global expectations, leading to unexpected social, environmental, and economic transformations in the investment spaces. This paper reviews and synthesizes the transformations and complexities in failed Jatropha spaces in six previous major Jatropha investment destinations across the world—Mexico, India, China, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Ghana—by employing qualitative data analysis. The findings generally show that, in all of the countries studied, promoters of Jatropha investments, including the central government and private investors, subscribed to a “wait-and-see” approach with positive expectations. The review revealed that the intended goal of establishing global Jatropha investments to serve as an alternative source of fuel failed because of the unexpected complexities of the hype, which dwelled much on the deferment option of the “wait-and-see” approach for global Jatropha investments. Failure of the investments along with unmet expectations led to land-use changes from Jatropha to the cultivation of other crops (often food crops) or total land abandonment. Although we are not totally pessimistic about the economic and production viability of Jatropha as a biofuel feedstock, we emphasize the importance of paying considerable attention to other feedstocks that might have a better future as alternatives to fossil-based energy for the deployment of sustainable bioenergy. Furthermore, our findings provide meaningful justification for policy- and decision-makers in the development space to tacitly reflect and appraise new investment initiatives or interventions before endorsement.

Plant Power: Opportunities and challenges for meeting sustainable energy needs from the plant and fungal kingdoms

“…Asia (Antwi-Bediako, Otsuki, Zoomers, & Amsalu, 2019;Castro Gonzáles, 2016). Obstacles included the lack of effective technologies for community processing (Moniruzzaman, Yaakob, Shahinuzzaman, & Khatun, 2017), strenuous and time-consuming fruit collecting (Pari, Suardi, Longo, Carnevale, & Gallucci, 2017), and skin irritation caused by handling (Devappa, Roach, Makkar, & Becker, 2013).…”

Role of Comparative Advantage in Biofuel Policy Adoption in Latin America

“…Global concerns about rising fossil fuel consumption and its potential impact on the ozone layer, air pollution, human health, and climate change have encouraged both developed and developing countries to consider sustainable and cleaner-burning fuel alternatives, such as biofuels [39][40][41][42][43][44]. As a result, world production of bioethanol increased more than fivefold from about 17 billion liters in 2000 to 108 billion liters in 2018 (for details see the annual biofuel production data posted on the Renewable Energy Association webpage: https://ethanolrfa.org/).…”

“…The most effective policy tools for implementing the biofuel policies include biofuel-fossil fuel blending requirements, tax subsidies, and flex-fuel vehicle programs [40,41,43,44]. Although a wide range of feedstocks are used for producing the first-generation biofuels, corn (USA) and sugarcane (Brazil) are the primary sources for making ethanol and oilseeds (e.g., soybeans, palm oil, rapeseed, castor beans, and jatropha) are used for producing biodiesel.…”

“…The fossil fuel industry, which is considered to be strategically important, generates about eight percent of the total export revenue, contributes more than thirty-five percent to the federal budget, and attracts more than fifty percent of the public investment [39]. Despite the massive investment in the fossil fuel industry, Mexico enacted a Bioenergy Promotion and Development Law in 2008 to diversify domestic energy production, revitalize the rural economy, control air pollution, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions [40,51]. Subsequently, several initiatives promoting local production of biofuels from cactus, castor beans, jatropha, soybeans, and palm oils were initiated.…”

<i>Jatropha Curcas</i> as Marginal Land Development Crop in the Sultanate of Oman for Producing Biodiesel, Biogas, Biobriquettes, Animal Feed, and Organic Fertilizer

“…Thus, there is a lot of experience base to be gained, which hopefully can help deal with the challenges associated with this plant. A recent study (Antwi-Bediako et al, 2019) examined six major Jatropha investment cases worldwide in Mexico, India, China, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Ghana. It suggests that the negative outcomes were due to following a trial-and-error approach accompanied by optimistic expectation.…”