The growing trend of converting agriculture lands to agrifuel lands is very real in the world’s poorest nations.  While in Lusaka last year I attended a colloquium where Jatropha was hailed as the miracle crop that would carry Zambia through an economic slump in the global price of copper.  At the time, Zambia’s petro prices had skyrocket above two dollars a liter, the most expensive in the region.  (The irony of course being that the nation shares a boarder with Angola.)  The benefits of petro-independence for the landlocked nation were awfully appealing.

A small but growing biofuel lobby was pressuring government officials to create strong incentives for farmers to convert their fields to fuel growing powerhouses.  Alas, the number’s simply didn’t add up.  Jatropha is tricky to grow. It’s productivity is variable, it’s yields unpredictable  Without subsidies the costs of production would exceed potential returns, meaning production of Jatropha would rely heavily on foreign aid dollars.  Dollars that could be spent on fertilizer for food-growing fields, or even food itself. (Never mind the fact that the general scientific consensus is that biofuel production is counter-productive due to it’s high demand on water and petro to grow crops.)

In a nation where many go hungry and the majority live on less than $1 a day, growing fuel instead of food simply doesn’t make sense.