Araweelo News Network
Hargeysa(ANN)-The Somaliland Ministry of Agriculture recently announced that the Wajale project has been handed over to a Chinese company.
Officials from the Chinese company and Somaliland’s Minister of Agriculture Ahmed Mumin Seed said the castor tree would be planted there.
However, local farmers opposed the move, saying the project by a Chinese company was endangering people, livestock and the environment.
Also, young scholars and other sections of the Gebiley community, have warned of the company’s plan to plant a castor tree in Wajale.
Scholar Hamse Abdirahman Khairy, one of the leaders of the national opposition party, spoke about the dangers of poisoning a tree that the Somaliland government allowed Wajale to plant in a Chinese company called Castor Tree in Wajale.
After the somaliland minister of agriculture announced last week that it will plant the tree in an area of 2,000 hectares.
the leaves of the castor bean plant are also poisonous causing transitory muscle tremors, ataxia, and excessive salivation.
The poison has been seized at the White House in recent days, and White House officials have confirmed to the Associated Press that the poison was called ricin, originally from Castor.
In the tropics the plants reach about 10 to 13 metres (30 to 40 feet) in height. In temperate climates they are raised as annuals and grow 1.5 to 2.5 metres (4.9 to 8 feet) in a single season. The plants bear handsome giant 12-lobed palmate (fanlike) leaves. The bristly spined bronze-to-red clusters of fruits are attractive but often are removed before they mature, because of the ricin concentrated in their mottled beanlike seeds.
The hull contains a deadly poison called ricin. Castor oil has been used as medicine for centuries. Castor seeds without the hull are used for birth control, constipation, leprosy, and syphilis.
Castor oil is used as a laxative for constipation, to start labor in pregnancy, and to start the flow of breast milk.
The plant, which has health benefits, poses a risk to humans, animals and the environment, and is known to contain a toxin called ricin.