Modern agroforestry on larger scale with these energy crops on so-called degraded land are likely to develop into an attractive and sustainable business model to create new sources of renewable feedstock for European advanced biofuel producers.

Also for the land owners these models are attractive since often degraded cattle land is very under-utilized. The combination of income from oils, proteins, cattle and different types of carbon credits brings attractive returns for land owners and institutional investors.

The trees not only produce oil but also protein for animal feed. The trees capture greenhouse gases which results in credits that can be traded. Cattle can graze between the trees (low ILUC).

The activities around these large scale forestation programs bring also sustainable socio-economic development in rural areas. With many hectares of deforested and degraded land in for example African and South American countries there huge feedstock potential sources for advanced fuels. Biofuels based on these feedstocks provide very high GHG savings, up to 90%. The first large scale projects are ongoing and several new are being prepared.

Dutch Mountain works with Bioenergy Plantations Australia and Pt. Natural Bali on the development of a large reforestation project with Pongamia trees on one of the eastern islands in Indonesia. For Bio Energy Resources Limited (BERL) in Malawi we look for strategic partners to upscale the planting of jatropha shrubs and the production of vegetable oil for advanced biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuels.

With other project owners we work on the establishment of projects to exploit existing jatropha plants in different part of Africa. These were planted in the earlier jatropha hype and still grow seeds. Due to the lack of a sustainable value chain these oil containing seeds are not collected.