Can This Unassuming Little Desert Shrub Really Save The World?

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That's almost like getting something for nothing ... and a very important and valuable "something" at that. Why, the whole idea sounds too good to be true. Surely-although there's no arguing with the analysis of the jojoba's oil or the results of experiments with its cultivationthere must be a "fly in the ointment" someplace, What about the potential market for this "miracle" oil? Yeah, that's it! What'll happen to the price of the jojoba if too many of the world's and nations suddenly start raising it?

There doesn't really seem to be much chance of ever saturating the market. The Indians of the U.S. Southwest and western Mexico who now harvest nuts from the scattered patches of wild jojoba in their areas are a long, long way from satisfying the demand for the plant's oil. Even the 1,000-plus acres of cultivated jojoba plantations that have already been planted in anticipation of tomorrow's demand for the oil are a mere drop in the bucket to the over 100,000 acres of cultured jojobas that the National Academy of Sciences estimates the industrialized world could use right now.

And even that brave call for 100,000 acres of the plant pales into insignificance when you begin to realize what the Consejo Internacional Sobre Jojoba (International Conference on Jojoba and Its Uses) projects as the ultimate role this unusual shrub can play in our society.

"Jojoba can not only replace the endangered sperm whale and its banned oil as the major source of extreme -pressure lubricants, cosmetics, and other such specialized industrial commodities. This efficient, renewable converter of solar energy into oil can supplement-and someday may even largely replace-the steadily dwindling reserves of underground petroleum on which modern society so utterly depends for so many of its thermal and thermomechanical needs."

Think about that! Think about deserts reclaimed into neat plantations of trellis-grown shrubs ... shrubs that supply us with everything from fuel to diet pills. Think about impoverished, arid, Third World nations being ablefor a change-to earn enough foreign exchange to feed, clothe, and otherwise provide for their peoples. Think about saving the whales and other forms of life that are increasingly endangered by our fossil fuel economy. Think about all the things that the patient jojoba has been waiting so long to do for us.

There's no question about it: This still-little-known and largely unsung scrubby little desert tree just may hold the key to this planet's future. The meek may yet inherit the earth.

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