Letter: Jatropha oil less competitive

It’s a very ambitious project to have 48,000 metric tons of jatropha per month (the Post, March 15) as feedstock for biofuel production. According to current realistic and practical productivity of jatropha, it would require almost 100,000 hectares to get this huge quantity.
How do you get 100,000 hectares of jatropha plantation within such a short period of time? One of the major failures of jatropha plantations is due to the extremely low productivity of the crop.
Farmers have many other alternatives that generate much higher revenue. The buying price of jatropha seeds is currently US$120 per metric ton. How are we to expect the farmer to get by? This would be economic suicide.

Chumroen Benchavitvilai
Bangkok