Massive planting of jatropha planned in idle Samar lands

TACLOBAN CITY — About 181,000 hectares of state- and privately-owned idle lands in the three Samar provinces are being eyed for the cultivation of jatropha. Officials of the departments of Agriculture (DA), Agrarian Reform (DAR), and Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will convene next month in Eastern Samar to discuss a proposal by the Korean International Bio (KIBio) 2007 Corp. for a contract growing arrangement involving the idle lands. Leo Cañeda, DA regional executive director for Eastern Visayas, said this would be a model agribusiness project in compliance with the Biofuels Act. DAR will be tasked to identify the farmers in the agrarian reform communities that would benefit the project, DENR will check compliance with environmental laws, while DA will focus on the production side. Wilson Cerbito, DA regional technical director for research and development, said this would be in line with the government’s goal to develop two million hectares of idle lands in the country from 2005 to 2010. Moon-Shik-Kim, director of KIBio, recently sought the support of government agencies to facilitate the contract growing arrangement with farmers who own at least one hectare of idle land or a coconut farm without intercropping. The company started the production of jatropha seedlings in a five-hectare farm in San Roque, Northern Samar in July last year with an investment of $5 million. Some of the seedlings were recently transferred to about 300 hectares of land owned by local farmers. At least 5,000 hectares of farmland in the province are now subject to negotiations for a similar venture. — S. Q. Meniano, BusinessWorld