Project Jatropha Team

Location: Pleasant Hill, California, USA

Team Members: Apoorva Rangan, Callie Roberts, Adarsha Shivakumar

Project Jatropha’s goal is to promote Jatropha curcas as an ecologically friendly and economically sustainable source of biofuel in rural India. As a fuel source, Jatropha curcas has a lot to offer: it is a small, hardy shrub that produces high quality oil in its seeds that emit negligible emissions. Along with the NGO (non-governmental organization) Parivarthana and the plant biotechnology company Labland Biotechs, these three teens have trained subsistence farmers in India on how to cultivate the plant, extract its oil, and use it in their farm equipment. They supplied 1,000 seedlings to several groups, visited local high schools in the area to present their work, and plan to distribute 12,000 seedlings to more farmers in the hopes that the farmers can sell them for a significant profit.

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