Jatropha oil is vegetable oil produced from the seeds of the Jatropha curcas

Jatropha curcas

Jatropha curcas is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, that is native to the American tropics, most likely Mexico and Central America. It is cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions around the world, becoming naturalized in some areas...

, a plant that can grow in marginal lands.
When jatropha seeds are crushed, the resulting jatropha oil can be processed to produce a high-quality biodiesel

Biodiesel

Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol....

 that can be used in a standard diesel car, while the residue (press cake

Press cake

A press cake or oil cake is the solids remaining after pressing something to extract the liquids. Their most common use is in animal feed....

) can also be processed and used as biomass feedstock to power electricity plants or used as fertilizer (it contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium).
The plant may yield more than four times as much fuel per hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

 as soybean

Soybean

The soybean or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean which has numerous uses...

, and more than ten times that of maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

 (corn).