Efforts are going on to develop seed varieties that can yield much higher yields (100-200% higher) of castor per hectare. This is all still in the pilot stage but g+c- is expecting to arrange a couple of relationships wherein it can provide higher yielding seed varieties to farmers.
Once we have one plantation of 2000 hectares, that is the next phase following the current pilot farms, we will setup oil crushing capacity via small mills and arrange for the crude oil to be shipped to biodiesel plants belonging to our affiliates. At this stage, we don't intend to do value added processing of the crude castor oil/refining except ship it to biodiesel plants for conversion.
We have current relationships with seed suppliers in India and Brazil and are looking at arrangements to get higher yielding seeds and hybrid seeds. Current yields of the pilot farms are around 1.3 tons per hectare and we expect to raise it to 2-3 tons per hectare. Our objective is to get this done without paying disproportionately for the higher yielding seeds.
g+c- expects to have close to 30,000 hectares under castor plantings on an on-going/rotational basis in the next couple of years.
