Castor oil (Ricinus communis L.) is a renewable, multifunction vegetable oil, used in wide range of chemical industry feedstock. Nowadays, a product derived from castor has able to replace petroleum-based chemical feedstock. In spite of its renewable characteristic, castor oil production has to meet the environmental sustainability. This study was conducted to determine numbers of input and output used, as well as, their impact to the environment in the production processes. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method was used to determine the input, output and environmental impacts of castor oil production. The result is, that the needs for a ton of castor oil are: 0.97 ha of land, 1.06 kg of seeds for plantation, 0.27 tons of fertilizer, 7.7 liters of petrol, 219.71 liters of diesel, 2.43 tons of seeds for processing purpose, and 1 187.54 liters of water. The production process itself emits 1.03 tons CO2-eq of greenhouse gas (GHG). Reduction to environmental pressure could be accomplished by replacing fossil fuel with castor cake during production to reduce 153.19 liters of diesel usage equals with 0.43 tons CO 2-eq emission for a ton castor oil.

Indonesia is one of the diversity centre of banana. The North Maluku area has a high diversity of banana, which cultivated in farm and yard to produce food and other utilization, but has not been characterized yet morphologically and genetically. The objective of this study was to characterize banana accessions collected by BPTP Maluku Utara. The study was conducted from May 2014 to May 2015 in Germplasm Station of Assessment Institute for Agricultural Technology North Maluku. This study used seven accessions of cultivated banana, namely Emas, Jarum, Tembaga, and Gohu (Tidore Kepulauan City), Bunga (East Halmahera Regency), Galela (North Halmahera Regency), and Mulu Bebe (West Halmahera Regency). The morphological character observed were 32 qualitative characters and 15 quantitative characters based on standard descriptors from IPGRI. The data were analized by cluster analysis. The results showed that variability of morphology characters were found in the observed banana accesions. The cluster analysis showed that genetic diversity of seven banana accessions was divided two group clusters. The first, cluster I consisted of Gohu and Bunga banana. Second, cluster II consisted of Jarum, Emas, Galela, Tembaga, and Mulu Bebe banana. Emas and Jarum banana had the most maximum similar morphology characters of 63,12%, meanwhile Gohu banana had the lowest similar morphology characters from other accessions.