Satish Lele satish.lele@gmail.com

I am offering guidance for following activities of JATROPHA / CASTOR Plantations.

• Property assessment and site selection.
• Supply of Tested Seeds of best varieties.
• Layout and establishment.
• Water requirements and irrigation scheduling.
• Fertilizer programs and nutrition monitoring.
• Plantation work in your land.
• Production economics and marketing.
• Harvesting and handling.

My advice and assistance covers the following services:

• Preliminary stage - Site assessment, soil analysis, plantation, production & marketing evolution.

• Preparatory stage - Soil management, land preparation, bed preparation, irrigation planning & schedule, supply and planting of seedlings.

• Cultivation stage - Sowing, Fertilization, Nutrition & irrigation Monitoring.

• Post Cultivation & Marketing stage - Harvesting, Processing, Packaging and Marketing as well as BioDiesel and BioGas Plants.

I offer Consultancy Services for Plantation work for 1,000 hectors of land or more. I offer Consultancy Services for Jatropha Cultivation anywhere in Africa and Asia. I start Consultancy Services work within a month. I can offer Consultancy Services from start to cultivation and maintenance for 2 to 3 years. I can supply seeds from India, offer Consultancy Services to set up nursery on site and do the plantation on site. I am well conversant with the Machinery Required for large scale Cultivation (1,000 hectors and more) like, diggers, excavators, transport vehicles, jeeps etc. and can mobilize these to site within no time. I also train manpower to operate and maintain these vehicles.

The states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Chattisgarh have fallow lands, with rainfall from 500 to 700 mm per year. These are the most suitable lands for plantation of Jatropha. Most of these State Governments will lease out fallow lands. These are ideal for cultivation of Jatropha. These will be leased in lots of 200 hectors and multiples of that in few months time. Once the policy is set, we can get land on lease for you. We can handle complex paper work required to get the land on lease, prepare saplings from best quality seeds, plant them in scientific manner, grow and maintain these plantations and hand over plantation to you after mutually agreed period.

My expertise is in Jatropha plantations and our Services are:

• Property assessment and site selection.

• Supply of Tested Seeds and Saplings of best varieties.

• Layout and establishment.

• Water requirements and irrigation scheduling.

• Fertilizer programs and nutrition monitoring.

• Plantation work in your land.

• Production economics and marketing.

• Harvesting and handling.

I extend comprehensive and cost efficient support to clients for them to obtain optimal yield and returns on the cultivation of Jatropha Curcas. The advice and assistance covers the following services:

• Preliminary stage - Site assessment, soil analysis, plantation, production & marketing evolution.

• Preparatory stage - Soil management, land preparation, bed preparation, irrigation planning & schedule, supply and planting of seedlings.

• Cultivation stage - Sowing, Fertilization, Nutrition & irrigation Monitoring.

• Post Cultivation & Marketing stage - Harvesting, Processing, Packaging and Marketing as well as BioDiesel and BioGas Plants.

The potential for coverage of land in India, is as follows.

• Forests cover 69 Million hectares of which 38 million hectares is dense forest and 31 million hectares is under stocked. Of this 14 million hectares of forests are under the Joint Forestry Management. About 3.0 million hectares (notional) of land in forests should easily come under Jatropha Curcas plantation.

• 142 million hectares of land is under agriculture. It will be reasonable to assume that farmers will like to put a hedge around 30 million hectares of their fields for protection of their crops. It will amount to 3.0 million hectares (notional) of Jatropha Curcas plantation.

• The cultivators are expected to adopt land by way of agro forestry. Considerable land is held by absentee land lords who will be attracted to Jatropha Curcas as Jatropha Curcas does not require looking after and gives a net income of Rs 15,000 per hectare. Two Million Hectares of notional plantation is expected.

• Culturable fallow lands are reported to be 24 million hectares of which current fallow lands are 10 million hectares and other fallow lands are 14 million hectares. Ten percent of such land (2.4 million hectares) is expected to come under Jatropha Curcas plantation.

• On wastelands under Integrated Watershed Development and other poverty alleviation programs of Ministry of Rural Development a potential of 2 million hectares of plantation is assessed.

• On vast stretches of public lands along railway tracks, roads and canals. One million hectares of notional coverage with Jatropha Curcas is a reasonable assessment.

On the basis of above analysis it should be possible with proper extension, research, availability of planting material and funds, plantation of Jatropha Curcas on 13.4 million hectares of land is feasible in the immediate future. Institutional finance for private plantation and governmental allocation for public lands will have to be provided. Once success is achieved on the lands described above it should be possible to include very low fertility soils which are classified unculturable in this program. A significant proportion of such lands can also be brought under Jatropha Curcas plantation in an economically feasible manner. Plantation will result in their (degraded lands) rehabilitation also.

You can set up nurseries which will supply plants to the beneficiary to ensure success of plantations and quick return. Plantation will also result in seed production at the end of the first year itself. Nurseries will supply seedlings to the farmers in their village. A seedling will start yielding seeds after a year of its plantation. Jatropha Curcas is planted at a spacing of 3m X 3m and 1,000 plants will be grown in 1 hectare of Jatropha plantation. Although using a seedling of 4 to 6 months grown in a nursery should not result in the usual rates of mortality of plantations, it will be reasonable to assume that 20% of the plants will need replaced. A nursery can produce 20 lakh plants a year. Hence over a period of 3 years nursery will produce 60 lakh plants and will be sufficient to cover 2,000 Hectares of plantation.