The district authority has formed a Cooperative Federation under the Indian Societies Act which is owned by the farmers and Jatropha growers in the district which will be managed by the district authority. The district authority has, from funding received from the state and central governments under various programs, planted over 60,000 acres of Jatropha Curcas during the last five years. The district authority will continue to plant more Jatropha Curcas under the purview of the State Government policies for funding and development of Jatropha Curcas. The district has now transferred all planted and to be planted Jatropha Curcas to this newly formed federation.

Under the Agreement, MBIPL has agreed with the District Authority and the federation to:

• provide technical inputs and know-how to the Jatropha Curcas farmers;
• establish nurseries; and
• to support the newly formed federation in development of land along with effective utilization of Government grants for development of Jatropha

This will enable MBIPL to gain exclusive access to all Jatropha Curcas seeds harvested in the district and will favorably impact the price MBIPL will pay for the Jatropha Curcas seeds purchased from the Farmers/ Self Help Groups of the federation.

Mr. Ashish Swarup, CEO of MBIPL, said “This win-win partnership provides another excellent example of how a forward thinking government authority can help to provide: sustainable benefits to people living in poverty; long term value accrual to the Self help groups & farmers as owners of the cooperative federation; achievement of economies of scale; and benefits from the research and technical and commercial inputs from an integrated biofuels player. More districts should follow this example”.

MBIPL has been in active discussions with other districts for similar arrangements and is confident that this second win-win agreement will help it finalize arrangements with some more districts in the region providing it immediate and long term access to large scale Jatropha Curcas seeds.