Jatropha! A socio – economic pitfall for Mozambique

In Mozambique, the debate on agrofuels has steadily advanced over the last five years, fueled by industry speculation and demand, grand promises and foreign interests. Investors have applied for rights to close to 5 million hectares in Mozambique in 2007 alone, nearly one-seventh of the country’s officially defined “arable” land and is rushing to create favorable conditions for investors at the cost of civil rights of Mozambicans. A good example of this was clear with the World Bank funded National Policy and Strategy for Biofuels that purposely blocked civil society participation, lacked transparency and was only made publicly available once complete and approved by parliament.

Because of Africa’s water scarce climate and the continent’s large extent of supposedly 'marginal' land, Jatropha has been given the most attention as a potential agrofuel crop. However, many question the claimed benefits of Jatropha and believe that the current rush to develop Jatropha production on a large scale is illconceived, under-studied and could contribute to an unsustainable trade that will not solve the problems of climate change, energy security or poverty. Therefore, this study evaluates Jatropha production in Mozambique and the most common claims made in favor of Jatropha in order to delineate the differences between the rhetoric and reality.