by Wu Siya

MALANJE, Sept. 3 (China Economic Net) - Whether it is by the creeks in China or in the vast jungles of Africa, there is often an inconspicuous plant growing freely. Although it is full of fruits, passing animals would never think of using it to fill stomachs- castor oil plant. Such a small poisonous seed could occupy a place in spy warfare or US big hit Breaking Bad as an invisible but deadly weapon. However, few people understand the preciousness of the castor oil extracted from it as “liquid gold”.

“Despite the fact that castor beans have sharp thorns as well as contain highly toxic ingredients, they have now become one top ten major oil crops worldwide, and its cultivation scale has reached industrial levels in more than 30 countries,” Chinese agricultural expert Prof. Yuan Guobao, Advisor to Hubei Provincial Sino-Africa Business Council, told China Economic Net.

Why is this ‘dangerous’ plant regarded as a treasure? Castor beans contain about 50% oil, and the unique properties of such oil - high viscosity, high flash point, low freezing point and large specific gravity - have made it rise rapidly in the late 1970s to become a globally popular industrial raw material.

According to customs data, China’s total demand for castor oil in 2023 is about 350,000 tons, of which 330,000 tons, or 94%, depends on imports. How to gradually change this dilemma? Chinese agricultural scientists have turned their attention to the vast African continent, which is also the real home of castor.

African students at a castor test field in Shennong Farm [Photo provided to CEN]

In the Shennong Farm, located in Malanje Province in northern Angola and developed by agricultural leaders from Hubei, China, fields of lush castors are stretching out broad green palms to the scorching African sun, proudly displaying abundant fruits.

“Regarding the most popular castor oil deep-processing product in the world - nylon 11, it is a high-end chemical material first developed by the French Arkema company using castor oil as raw material, which has advantages of low density, strong resistance to high and low temperatures, low water absorption, and high tensile strength. It could be made into various mechanical parts, insulating parts, military cables, optical cables, and the like.” Yuan told the reporter that at the Shennong Farm, Chinese and African technicians and international students are working side by side to cultivate better castor varieties.

Castor breeding experimental field under China-Africa cooperation project [Photo provided to CEN]

“Looking around the world, developed countries such as France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Netherlands are the main consumers of castor oil, accounting for 65% of the world's total consumption. However, these countries basically do not grow castor themselves, but directly import castor seeds or castor oil from major castor producing countries such as India and Brazil,” Yuan added.

“Moreover, countries such as Thailand have legislated to ban the export of castor seeds and crude oil, only allowing the export of deep-processing products. All of facts are enough to prove the importance of China-Africa cooperation in the development of castor, an inevitable strategic crop.”

Considering the high cost of land and labor in China, coupled with constraints such as land fragmentation, mechanized and large-scale continuous planting of castor in China faces a series of obstacles. Therefore, more and more agricultural pioneers have begun to explore planting castor in areas with rich land resources and suitable climates such as Africa and South Asia, and have cooperated with castor oil manufacturers at home and abroad, to develop an order-return planting model.

Yuan mentioned that Italian large enterprise group Enel Green Power is cooperating with China to build a castor oil factory in Angola.

“In addition to the chemical products mentioned above, castor oil is also needed in high-end aviation and precision instrument lubricants, plasticizers, engineering plastics, paints, and low-pollution fuels similar to gasoline and diesel. There is definitely great potential for China-Africa cooperation in developing ‘liquid gold’."