Firm generates US$28m from castor bean exports
Oil Castor, a Zimbabwean biotechnology firm, says it is now generating US$28 million annually from exporting castor beans into the region, a few years since it started operations.
The Harare-based company runs a programme where rural castor bean farmers dotted across the country buy engineered seed from the firm and upon harvesting the crop, sell the produce back to the enterprise.
In an interview, Oil Castor co-founder Alvaro Arellano, said his organisation, which also manufactures and exports health oils from castor beans, exports its products within Africa.
“We’ve exported castor beans not only from Zimbabwe farmers, but we now have farmers in Malawi, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, and South Africa. In total the export value of castor beans in the last fiscal year was US$28 million,” he said.
Castor bean is used to produce biodiesel and a wide range of products such as cosmetic oils and soaps, industrial, lubrication, and health oils.
The crop, which has also been identified as a ready jatropha alternative for producing biodiesel, does well in Zimbabwe’s climatic conditions.
Some years back, Zimbabwe embarked on a jatropha biodiesel project, which was a brainchild of joint efforts between the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and Korean investors.
However, the project, which was the first of its kind on the continent and one of the few in the world, hit a brick wall due to financial constraints.
Castor bean is tolerant to two main abiotic stresses, salinity and drought, making its cultivation possible in marginal lands that are not favourable for food crops.
Oil Castor started exporting from Zimbabwe in 2018 while exports from other countries began last year after the firm entered into a similar arrangement with farmers in other countries.
“We export primarily Vaseline, castor oil, medical (wound healing) creams, castor beans for processing into oils, and engineered castor beans for plant growing. “Our engineered castor beans are grafted plants that help the plants germinate and grow uniformly to avoid the wild seed situation which brought down Jatropha,” said Mr Arellano.
“At Oil Castor, we have been hit hard by the economy just like everyone else. “The key to our success is to ensure quality castor bean grown, uniformity in produce that we sell to our consumers, and bitcoin or US dollar wires, we pay to our farmers.”
Most tobacco farmers, he said, were looking to get into farming the biodiesel plants, adding that for producers that plant 10 hectares or more, Oil Castor builds them a biodiesel plant for US$2 000 (half price off the ticket price).
Locally, the bio-technology company has contracted over 1 000 farmers in Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East and Matabeleland North provinces, among others.
“We are giving our farmers a free biodiesel production plant when they order 12ha of castor beans or spend US$6 000,” said Mr Arellano.
Biodiesel is a liquid mixture of free fatty acids with similar properties to diesel. The name comes from the fact that the diesel is produced from renewable oils, and not from fossil crude oil.
Experts say biodiesel from castor beans has a number of benefits over conventional diesel and some of the advantages are that biodiesel is biodegradable, non-toxic, and renewable, and low greenhouse gas emission, among others.-The Herald
