(April 4, 2003 – Updated: September 4, 2006)

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Out of the about 350,000 plant species ever described by botanists, man has used around 3,000 and, almost 150 have been commercially grown in vast extensions. However, throughout the centuries, mankind has only been able to domesticate a minor number of plant species. Nowadays, most humans around the world feed on 20 crops only, including cereals such as wheat, rice, millet and sorghum; tubers such as potato, sweet potato and manioc; leguminosae such as beans, soybean and peanut, as well as various other crops such as sugar cane, sugar beet, coconut and banana.

The domestication process has always been a difficult road for mankind. Domesticating a plant species to be used commercially through agricultural cultivation is a long-term process entailing high risk levels. The solutions to the exotic and complex problems underlying the development of a new crop are truly costly as compared to those used for any very well-known and long-established crop. The scientific community agrees that domestication is a process that exceeds the possibilities of agribusiness growers and should be dealt with by a multidisciplinary task force (Janick, 1999, Poling, 1999, Jollif, 1990).

Jojoba is a typical new crop example. Until the late 1970s, this species remained unknown to the public and only a few scientists –botanists, particularly- knew it as wild species from the Sonoran desert. But in the late 1970s-early 1980s, the situation started to change fast, owing to the discovery of the potential uses of jojoba oil (Miwa, 1985). This is a unique, renewable natural material of very high value, which can be produced in poor lands under low hydric conditions where traditional crops would never survive. By the end of the 1970s, jojoba was viewed as a "magical" plant that, at last, would allow the poor, dry lands of the world to bear fruit: a grain that could be grown by people living in the poorest areas and be turned into a significant source of income. Moreover, in the future this crop could eliminate the need to slaughter sperm whales, an endangered species, and provide a substitute for oil, a non-renewable source of energy that had undergone dramatic price fluctuations over the last decade. For these reasons, jojoba domestication activities began in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, Argentina, Mexico, Israel and many other countries (National Research Council, 1985). Based on limited data from a few plantations, resolved and enthusiastic businessmen made significant investments and started a large number of commercial plantations all over the world. These plantations concentrated in Arizona and California, United States; Sonora, Mexico; Paraguay and Argentina in South America; Australia; Israel and, to a lesser extent, in many other countries. Expectations were high as regards both sale prices and performance profits. In the United States, in addition to the expected profits from the seed, tax benefits also fostered these plantations. The large majority of commercial projects failed; to a great extent, this was due to the lack of varieties fitting the local conditions, and the unavailability of information on how to manage the plantations.

Between late 1970 and 1989, more than 20,000 has had been planted in the United States only (National Academy of Science, 1989). However, by the end of 2004 there were only around 1,900 has engaged in commercial production (Brown, 1999).

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