Agriculture in India is a very sensitive subject, because it affects 800 000 farmers. It really is a holy cow!

The global “fuel-or-food” debate will be rendered irrelevant by its biofuel busi­ness model, claims Reliance Life Sciences (RLS), part of the Reliance Industries Group, one of the conglomerates in India (http://www. livemint. com/2008/07/ 20232412/Reliance8217s-new-biofuel-b. html, 11 January 2011). RLS is promoting the concept of “fuel-and-food” by intercropping Jatropha with food crops.

The company says it is currently testing intercropping of Jatropha and Pongamia (non-edible fuel crops) along with a diverse set of food crops, including corn, mango, medicinal plants, and vegetables, in its research and development farms at Gandhar in Baruch, Gujarat and Nagothane in Raigad, Maharashtra.

RLS cooperates with General Motors in developing energy crops in India, and with this biofuels initiative RLS intends to contribute to India’s energy security and put purchasing power in the hands of millions of farmers in India. RLS is doing extensive research on Jatropha and develops hybrid varieties of biofuels that will double the yield under irrigated conditions. Test plants have shown a yield of around 10 tonnes of oil per hectare.

In Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and, RLS is building clus­ters of 100 000 acres of plantations delivering biomass 100 000-tonne biofuel extraction plants [3].

5.3

Nestle

Nestle has an original twist to intercropping. Nestle buys coffee from coffee farmers in the Philippines. Nestle encourages its farmers to plant Jatropha between the coffee. Thus, the main crop is still coffee, but the farmers will earn extra income when the Jatropha fruits are ripe to be harvested.