Jatropha production of biofuels in Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara

Miracle solution or imminent disaster? Print E-mail
Jatropha production of biofuels in Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara

Jacqueline Vel
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The sign indicates the plans for the production of biodiesel, but there is behind us
only one hectare demonstration plot in poor condition.
J. Vel

With the whole world attention to global warming and the extremely high prices of fossil fuels, interest in alternative energy is booming. The European Union has targeted 5.75 percent of the market share for fossil fuels mixed with biofuels in 2010. In anticipation of more advanced techniques are developed, biofuel is now on large parts of the country, both in Western countries and increasingly in developing countries. Indonesia is one of the relatively new biofuel-producing countries. The national government aims to increase the share of biofuels in the domestic fuel consumption and to increase production for export. Oliepalmplantages, sugar cane, cassava and jatropha (known by Indonesians as jarak pagar) are the four priority crops in Indonesia for the production of biofuels.

International companies are lining up to invest in new plantations. Meanwhile, the growing criticism. What will the impact on the environment? What will happen with people of the land rights? Biofuel will endanger the food? How will the benefits of this booming business are distributed within the value chains, which runs from western companies invest in Indonesia to the farmers in marginal areas?

Jatropha can be grown on marginal lands. Sumba is full of "marginal land", but they are not 'empty'

Organizations such as Sawit Watch have criticised by oil palm firmly in the public debate. Compared with palm oil, jatropha seems a miracle that crop - according to optimistic websites such as those of the Centre for Jatropha Promotion and biodiesel (in India) (http://www.jatrophaworld.org) - will not only the production of biodiesel, but also contribute to wasteland reclamation and reforestation, as well as generating revenue in areas previously unusable. In november 2007 I went to Sumba, where I have been involved in rural development work and research in the field of rural economy and local politics since 1986, to see how this miracle works in practice.
National biofuel policy and legislation

The new legislation makes large-scale jatropha plantations financed by international companies. Presidential Regulation No. 5 of 2006 relating to national energy production production of biodiesel made official policy. Presidential Decree No. 10 of 2006 inaugurated a national team for the development of biofuels (Tim Nasional Bahan Bakar Nabati or Timnas BBN). Their task is to make a blueprint for the development of biofuels, with a corresponding delineation of the roadmap implementation. The terminology of the decision indicates a top-down approach reminiscent of the New Order. The promotion of biofuels includes the creation of "energy self-sufficient villages, but the biggest part of the policy is aimed at the macroeconomic level, where consumption targets and where the national legislation should be adapted to the "simplification of the licensing problems." The chairman of the national team, Al Hilal Hamdi, announced on January 9, 2007 that the investment agreements totalling U.S. $ 12.4 billion was signed that day, the largest in China and Malaysia. april new investment law of 2007 allows foreign investors to acquire land for an initial period of 60 years, offers tax benefits and the possibility of creating "special production of biofuels zones.

The current legislation seems to favour large international companies that can provide the necessary capital

Some national parliamentarians protested that the legislation meant "Indonesia is for sale." They argued that the law provides insufficient protection to local entrepreneurs, and that the equal status of these subsidies to foreign and domestic investment shows the government's historical apathy to Indonesia's colonial past. In the nineteenth century the Dutch East Indies government forced the cultivation of crops for export benefit the Dutch treasury. Indeed, colonial history and that of the more recent Green Revolution brings two important lessons. First, a system imposed on the commercial farming can threaten the food security of the primary producers. Secondly, large, high external input agriculture - as demonstrated during the Green Revolution - could lead to debts, loss of security and environmental damage. The production of Jatropha oil in the province of East Nusa Tenggara runs the risk of ignoring these lessons.
Jatropha on Sumba, november 2007

Jatropha pure vegetable oil obtained from the seeds can be used directly in a number of engines or blended into biodiesel. The Jatropha shrubs may be grown on marginal land (grasslands, fallow fields) that are not suitable for other types of cultivation. Sumba is full of "marginal land", but they are not "empty". They are sparsely populated, but the local population considers them a part of their ancestral land, which hold either communally Adat the framework of the law or in some cases even listed as crop land. The marginal nature of these areas is caused by poor soil, the shortage of rainfall and other sources of water, difficult access, lack of manpower, or combinations of these factors.
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This Jatropha project in Tana modulation to Sumba failed because the farmers
lack of information and markets.
J. Vel

During the brief exploratory research in november 2007, I found four types of Jatropha cultivation in Sumba. First is the "demonstration plot, near the district capital of East Sumba Waingapu. The hotel is just half hour drive from the district government offices is a one-hectare site planted in May 2006 by the state corporation Rajawala Nusantara Indonesia (RNI). The condition of the plants was very bad. Local farmers have told me that the timing of the planting was wrong (just before the dry season), the site is wrong (to be so close to the sandy beach), the water was in short supply (in spite of irrigation water in driven by truck), And there was little attention to the crop. Yet this land is deemed suitable to show that investors Jatropha can grow on Sumba.

The second type I would call it 'plot of corruption. " One of these is located far inland on ancestral grounds of the clan, a member of the district parliament. The MP received extensive assistance from the government funds (channeled through the district government and RNI) for the production of Jatropha seedlings. Opinions about the state of the crop ranged from 20 percent do not (according to the MP itself) and 60-80 percent failed (according to the local farmers and the head of the Government Plantation Service). The plot is poorly controlled.

The third type is the domestic cultivation: Jatropha hedges around a house yards. The Jatropha plant is known since the Second World War, when the Japanese soldiers entered to make room for the oil lamps. Many Sumbanese still remember how their grandparents followed this example. The leaves are also used as medicine. Jatropha for domestic use is now by some NGOs. With relatively simple equipment, a nearby community can organize their own production of biodiesel for certain types of engines and thus save on expensive fossil fuels.

The fourth type I 'forced plot. " The Agricultural Service is promoting Jatropha cultivation in the area that is now Central Sumba since 2005. In Tana modulation, the farmers were invited to plant the crop on an area that since 1994 was a cashew plantation. Before 1994 the land was not used for agriculture, but it was a part of pasture for the local population of livestock. At the beginning of the cashew project, the country registered with the National Land Agency and the participating farmers their land certificates. In 2005, the Agricultural Service sent large tractors to all remaining cashew trees and preparing the land for Jatropha. Thereafter, farmers were planting and caring for the Jatropha itself. Every three or four months, they receive herbicides to the weeds in the Jatropha area. But in november 2007, I learned that none of these farmers has been given any information about the herbicide whether and how to apply them safely. Nor did they have any information about the current prices of Jatropha seeds, nor who would be willing for their crop. A farmer with a bag of Jatropha seeds to the city, where he was surprised to receive only Rp500 (about 6 cents) per kilogram. The cost of transport to the city and back were higher than the revenues. The production of one litre of biodiesel needed five kilograms of seeds. The farmers in Tana modulation were not motivated to continue farming, and that explains the poor state of their Jatropha fields in november 2007.
International investment and local interests

On August 16, 2007 a headline in the online edition of the Indonesian daily Kompas announced: "Swedish grow Jatropha: Investments of 1 trillion Rupiah. Land remains the property of the people." The article continues: "Scan Oil Ltd., a company from Sweden, 1 trillion will invest in a jatropha plantation in Central Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara. Planting will start from december 2007 on 10,000-20,000 hectares. "I was surprised by this news, because all the years I have been closely involved in I knew this area that foreign investment of this magnitude - more than U.S. $ 100 million - were absolutely beyond the imagination of the inhabitants of Middle-Sumba.

Contacts with international companies with an interest in investing in Jatropha had become an election tool

Not only the Swedish company showed an interest in Central Sumba. Companies from the United States, Japan, Malaysia and India also have their representatives for the assessment of the feasibility. Central Sumba was an autonomous district (kabupaten) in May 2007. The District government is still engaged in organizing themselves. The main objective is to reach Rp 5 billion (U.S. $ 540000) in local fiscal revenue in 2010, because otherwise the district will be absorbed in West Sumba. The first district head will be chosen in June 2008, and in november 2007, the competition between the candidates had already begun. Contacts with international companies with an interest in investing in Jatropha had become an election tool, with each candidate presenting its own investor as a guarantee for a social program now called "corporate social responsibility '. A fifth type of Jatropha cultivation on Sumba in november 2007 could thus be called the "imaginary commercial plantation."

The group of farmers in Tana modulation for a visit by a U.S. investor. He was accompanied by his Indonesian colleague, PT Abadi Cecilisarah from Jakarta, and an election candidate. The investor who the farmers a one-off price of U.S. $ 110 per hectare for the whole period of thirty years. The farmers feel in a strong position with their country of certificates, and rejected the offer as too low. But the interim district head told me on the same day that the district government had already issued the cultivation title rights to PT Cecilisarah Abadi, because the investments that they are in possession of the national and provincial levels permits from the government. He felt that all decisions regarding Jatropha plantations should be part of a Memorandum of Understanding between the three parties: the government, local producers and business owners. Yet there is a solid mechanism for these MoUs in a way that the interests of local producers were not yet available.

Large-scale biofuel plantations also work… either work or external mechanization

Large-scale plantations of biofuels require not only that country but also the labour and water. There is no precedent on Sumba for water management on this scale. Figures from similar situations in India shows that a well-maintained Jatropha plantation requires a full-time worker per hectare in the first year, and one for every four acres thereafter. A plantation of 10000 hectares would therefore have to 10000 workers in the first year. In Central Sumba that would present one third of the agricultural workforce. Given the alleged shortage of labour in agriculture as it is, it is not very likely that one third would shift to jatropha cultivation, nor that they could do so without prejudice to existing systems for the production of foodstuffs. Either outside employment or mechanization would be needed.
Farmers need information and protection

If even the most remote places in Indonesia - as Central Sumba - are made in the global value chain of production of biofuels, there must be action by the government to protect citizens involved in the chain. The current national legislation seems to favour large international companies that can provide the capital required. To see how the legislation can be more responsive to the interests of primary producers, consumers and local entrepreneurs, as well as the environment, requires more research.

As long as the farmers have no information on the crops, techniques, prices, laws and capabilities, the Jatropha miracle picture remains imaginary. The few examples found on Sumba in november 2007 show that an equitable distribution of benefits in the Jatropha value still far beyond reach. II

Jacqueline Vel (JACVel@law.leidenuniv.nl) is a researcher at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Policy and Development at the University of Leiden, Netherlands.
Within Indonesia 91: January-March 2008