Haiti Jatropha Stakeholders Conference
The Haiti Jatropha Stakeholders' Conference, held in Port-au-Prince June 23-24 2009, was organized and hosted by CHIBAS Bio-energy, Jatropha Pepinyè, and Jatropha Foundation. The Haiti Jatropha Stakeholders Conference began the process of building awareness about the opportunities and risks associated with Jatropha curcas bio-energy in Haiti and connected stakeholders from various parts of the Jatropha market value chain. Conference participants included small growers (growers organizations), producer groups, Haitian NGO’s, relevant agencies in the Government of Haiti and both the, the private sector, bilateral and multilateral, international donor communities.
Key Takeaways: Research needs to be conducted to further identify lands in Haiti where Jatropha agriculture will be profitable and on genetic development of Jatropha varieties to further increase production capacity of land. 
- Food security is not hindered by Jatropha agriculture due to Haiti’s large quantity of vacant land. In fact Jatropha agriculture will improve food security in the long-term by increasing the fertility of the soil it is planted on.
- Domestic consumption of straight vegetable oil (SVO) is the initial market for Haitian producers/processors to pursue due to Haiti’s high demand and the increased profitability relative to international bio-diesel markets.
- Economic viability of Jatropha in rural Haiti on a large-scale has yet to be proven. Demonstration projects are needed from the NGO and private sector communities to prove the profitability of sustainable and socially responsible Jatropha production
- Long-term food production capacity on land planted with Jatropha and food crops is expected to increase. Long-term fertility and profitability will be increased by reducing erosion and fertilizing the soil with fallen leaves.
Education about Jatropha was the primary goal of the Haiti Jatropha Stakeholders Conference. Organizations and individuals that support and do not support Jatropha bio-energy in Haiti were invited to participate and speak at the conference in order to begin the national dialogue in an inclusive setting. Ultimately food security and natural disasters were the prima
ry concerns around any agricultural change due to Haiti’s precarious economic position as the poorest nation in the western hemisphere with severe food insecurity issues. It was illustrated at the conference that Haiti has at least 500,000 Hectares of vacant unused hill side land that would support Jatropha agriculture in addition to many hectares of flat land that is currently vacant due to its inability to profitably produce food.
Food production in Haiti supplies only 42% of national consumption with 52% imported. 88% of Haiti’s rural population lives in destitution on less than $2 per day. Haiti needs to develop a strategy to not only plant more food, but also improve the quality of soil on vast tracts of land throughout the country that have lost top soil due to deforestation and have lost soil fertility due to decades of sugar or sisal production. Much of these soils do not have enough fertility to adequately and profitably produce food crops with-in the means of most Haitian farmers. Jatropha is a solution to this problem because if planted on these marginal lands with food crops, Jatropha agriculture will immediately increase food production in Haiti by enabling farmers to grow food alongside a new cash crop. In the long-term as the Jatropha trees mature and retain top soil with their roots, they will continually improve soil fertility and food crop production in fields it is planted
Haiti’s energy market is currently composed of petroleum diesel (29%), wood (32%), and charcoal (39%) creating an energy mix with 71% (wood and charcoal) directly contributing to continued deforestation, soil erosion, and heightened natural disasters. Approximately 1,114,000 hectares of Jatropha would produce enough liquid fuel to satisfy Haiti’s entire demand for energy or in other words make Haiti an energy self sufficient economy. Jatropha offers the potential to begin combating deforestation, soil erosion, and heightened natural disasters while simultaneously decreasing Haiti’s dependence on wood-based energy products and expensive imported petroleum energy products. By converting marginal and vacant lands into land into Jatropha bio-energy production, Haiti will not only create jobs in rural areas, but also increase food production and decrease oil imports. The saved investment on oil imports can then be directly re-invested into Haiti’s economy.
Haiti’s Diesel fuel is the easiest market to enter due to the ability of simply mixing Jatropha SVO (not Jatropha bio-diesel) with petroleum diesel fuel up to 25% to be sold at current diesel retail outlets. It would take 6,500 hectares of Jatropha production in Haiti to produce enough Jatropha SVO to mix it 2% with petroleum diesel making B2 diesel fuel. As the Jatropha industry becomes established, Jatropha fuels can enter into other markets with higher capital and/or switching costs such as transportation, cooking oil to replace wood and charcoal, and lamp oil.