THATTA, Dec 8: The World Wildlife Fund for Pakistan has launched bio-diesel nurseries of Jatropha Curcas and Ricinus Communis plant species at Keti Bandar coastline to yield oil that could be used as diesel for vehicles and other diesel-run machinery in the country.

Dr Ghulam Akbar, Regional Director WWF Pakistan-Indus for All Programme, while giving details of the plan to Dawn here at Makli on Monday, said that the nurseries were being established on an experimental basis on marginally saline areas. He said that bio-diesel produced through these nurseries would also help farmers to earn their livelihood in the miseries-stricken Thatta deltaic belt.

He contended that the plants required minimum water and the scope of the project was believed to be very good in coastal areas, adding that initially the WWF had joined hands with private sector for establishment of bio-diesel nurseries over 50 acres in Keti Bandar.

However, the objective of the WWF was to help farmers to learn the advanced methods and technologies in agriculture and earn their livelihood.

Elaborating, the WWF RD said, Jatropha Curcas was an excellent bio-fuel crop which had many other advantages over the existing crops typically used to extract bio-fuels. “The oil content of its seeds is 37 per cent, its easy to grow, requires no irrigation, improves the soil, and the waste left over after pressing out the oil is nitrogen rich and make excellent fertiliser.”

He disclosed that if its plantation was found feasible in the deltaic region, planting 16,000 hectares of Jatropha would be sufficient to meet 0.5 per cent of diesel consumption of the entire country.

Speaking about castor oil Ricinus Communis, he said that although caster was indigenous to the south eastern Mediterranean region eastern Africa and India. Castor established itself easily as an apparently native plant and can often found on waste land, he said, adding that the use of castor oil in India had been documented since 2000 BC for use in lamps and in local medicine as a laxative, purgative, and cathartic in Unani, Ayurvedic and other ethno-medical systems.

In Brazil, he said, castor plants were in abundance and now being used to produce bio-diesel.