CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Castor oil plant (Ricinus communis L.) is a non food, drought resistant, energy plant gaining attention for producing biofuel as biodiesel in developing countries (Kamrun, 2013). As an oil bearing biomass feedstock, it can ensure an alternative source of energy and reduce the over dependency on fossil fuel (Kamrun, 2013). Ethiopia is considered to be the most probable site of origin of castor oil plant because of the presence of high diversity (Anjani, 2012). However, according to Sujatha et al. (2008) the plant originated from Abyssinia. It is distributed throughout the tropics and the subtropics, and is well adapted to the temperate region (Sujatha et al., 2008).