Technical experts
CEO of JATROPOWER Group, is of Indian nationality. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, he did 6 years of fundamental research on Jatropha. He also has extensive experience of managing intercultural projects. Dr. Francis played a key role in the DaimlerChrysler-DEG Jatropha project titled “Biofuels from Eroded Soils in India”, during his time at Hohenheim. This was the first comprehensive project to investigate the many aspects of Jatropha cultivation on wasteland, extraction of oil from its seeds, biodiesel production and the potential uses of the by-products remaining after oil extraction. He has acted as a consultant on Jatropha and other bio-energy projects to national governments, multinational financial institutions and private companies world-wide. He has several articles on the potential of Jatropha to his credit and has delivered keynote lectures on this and related topics at international fora.
Former CEO of JATROPOWER India, presently Honorary Senior Consultant. Prof. Oliver’s professional career spanning 38 years was mostly devoted to the agricultural extension services. He worked with the Department of Agriculture of the Government of Tamil Nadu and with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. Before joining JATROPOWER, he was involved in the introduction of Jatropha cultivation over large numbers of smallholder farms. Prof. Oliver holds a PhD degree in agricultural extension and has 35 research papers and 100 articles in the Tamil language in various farm journals to his credit.
Presently our Senior Consultant. Dr Muralidharan is among the widely known oilseed breeders in India and internationally. He held several prestigious positions during his professional career including those of Professor and Head of the Department of Oilseeds at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Director of the Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute and Director of National Research Centre for Groundnut, ICAR, Junagath, Gujarat. He has worked extensively over the span of the last 45 years on breeding of oilseeds such as groundnut, sunflower, sesame and other crops such as rice and legumes and has been instrumental in the development and release of several elite seed varieties in each of these crops. During the last years, he has been a senior consultant of the jatropha development effort of on or the biggest corporate houses in India. Dr Muralidharan led over 30 research projects and has about 100 scientific publications to his credit.
JATROPOWER has a technical team in India having expertise in various aspects of plantation management, plant genetics and breeding, general agronomy, organisation and management of contract farming with outgrowers, oilseed quality control and oilseed commerce. JATROPOWER has also built up a pool of experts from Africa and Latin America that can be accessed for specific tasks in different countries in those continents. In addition to own personnel and the pool of experts, JATROPOWER possess access to state of the art technical expertise in Jatropha breeding and seed and oil biochemical analysis through cooperation agreements with leading research institutes. Current partners include ICAR institutes in India, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India, Hohenheim University, Germany and Humboldt University, Germany.