Plant oils extracted from a diverse under-utilised wealth of seeds and nuts of plants growing on marginal land are a valuable energy resource which could be utilised for decentralised, small-scale rural power supply at a village level. The oils are potentially capable of fuelling diesel engines and cooking and lighting appliances and may be processed into other products such as soap, molluscicides and bio-pesticides or used as feedstock for small-scale industrial processes. As well as providing a clean, renewable substitute for imported fossil fuels and conserving the dwindling forest resources and other biomass, the residue which remains after the seeds have been crushed is potentially a nutritious animal fodder and can replace chemical fertilisers thus helping to preserve the role of organic fertilisers in traditional agri-silvi-pastoral systems. Activities in the planting, harvesting, processing and distribution of the products can generate income for the rural poor.

Compared with diesel fuels plant oils are clean burning and the sulphur content is usually low, so oxides of sulphur and hence acid deposition is markedly reduced. When used as a cooking fuel there is potential to improve respiratory and eye health and reduce the drudgery associated with solid fuel collection and utensil cleaning, especially for women. Perhaps the most striking quality of plant oils as fuels arises from the fact that on combustion only the carbon sequestered from the atmosphere by the living plant during photosynthesis is released, so these fuels are CO₂ neutral with respect to climate change and renewable provided consumption does not exceed natural growth rates.

It is unlikely that cultivation of oil seed crops in monocultures for energy purposes will be appropriate in Nepal as it has been elsewhere because of the intense competition for cultivable land for the growing of food crops. However, some oil-bearing plants, the physic nut (Jatropha curcas L.) especially, propagate readily on marginal lands and have been used for generations in some areas as living fences to protect crops from browsing livestock, so planting can be encouraged to reduce top soil erosion and to enhance agricultural production as well as existing natural resources of oil-bearing flora without promoting competition with the requirements for food production.