Jatropha project

The Jatropha project was started by Magadi Soda Company in 2006 with the primary objective of empowering communities around the project area environmentally, socially and economically. The project would benefit the environment by reducing soil erosion, increasing forest cover and abating global warming. Socially, the communities would benefit by forming community groups that would uplift their bargaining power.

Nevertheless, the communities would benefit economically by selling harvested jatropha seeds and using cheap fuel from the bio diesel plant in order to replace kerosene which is expensive. The strategy used is community based where the communities are the ultimate beneficiaries and directly involved in the implementation process.

The secondary objective of the project is to come up with a medium scale bio-fuel processing plant to process Jatropha seeds into bio-diesel and other Jatropha by-products.

The uptake of the jatropha has been immense with nurseries started in both Magadi and Kajiado. However, the main challenges have been marketing of the seeds – which may discourage the eager farmers.