The politics of Jatropha-based biofuels in Kenya: convergence and divergence among NGOs, donors, government officials and farmers

Abstract

This study explores the spread of Jatropha in Kenya and some implications of its trajectory. Proponents of biodiesel in Kenya have adopted a near-singular focus on Jatropha but attach it to a wide variety of goals, including climate change mitigation, poverty reduction, and clean development. The priorities of actors who promote the crop often differ from those of smallholder farmers who grow it. The persistence of multiple discourses of development linked to Jatropha creates tensions between competing perspectives, manifested through allegations of exclusion and shady business, but it also allows actors to deploy strategic flexibility by invoking Jatropha to pursue different ends. A case study of an internationally funded project in Mpeketoni, Coast Province highlights disconnects between the initial objectives of donors, coordinators, and farmers and explores the project's potential to produce outcomes that are satisfactory to all three. The paper contributes to wider debates about biofuels and discourses of development: Jatropha shares many features with past agricultural development interventions, but as a biofuel it exhibits additional layers of contested meaning because of the politics of energy and the environment that are involved.

Keywords:

• development studies
• political economy
• biofuels
• renewable energy
• Jatropha curcas
• Kenya

Notes

¹Here, discourse is interpreted broadly as a paradigm or narrative that includes language as well as the assumptions and representations through which language is translated into social meaning (Grillo 1997).

²Organised by the research subcommittee of the Kenya Biodiesel Association.

³Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Agriculture.

⁴Green Africa Foundation, Vanilla Development Foundation, Vanilla-Jatropha Development Foundation, UNDP/DED, Help Self Help Centre, Community Project Support Organization, Africa Youth Initiative on Climate Change.

⁵Better Globe Forestry Ltd, Energy Africa Ltd, Biogreen Technologies.

⁶Endelevu Energy, Pipal Ltd, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Forest Research Institute.

⁷United Nations Development Programme – Small Grants Programme, Kenya Agricultural Productivity Project (funded by the World Bank)

⁸Some of these combinations of roles include researcher/private sector, researcher/government and NGO/government.

⁹Including the World Bank, Prince Albert of Monaco Foundation, Norwegian Church Aid and the Global Environment Facility.

¹⁰Green Africa Foundation, Vanilla Development Foundation and Vanilla-Jatropha Development Foundation.

¹¹Including the Ministries of Energy, Agriculture, Cooperative Development and Marketing, Environment and Natural Resources, Finance, Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Services, Higher Education, Science and Technology, Lands, Local Government, Regional Development Authorities, Trade, Transportation, Water and Irrigation, and Youth and Sports.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol Hunsberger

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ‘Biofuels, land and agrarian change’ workshop hosted by the Journal of Peasant Studies, Initiatives in Critical Agrarian Studies (ICAS) and Saint Mary's University International Development Studies Program in October 2009. I am grateful to the other workshop participants for their insightful comments. Thanks also to Mike Brklacich, Patricia Ballamingie, Blair Rutherford, and three anonymous reviewers for their thorough and helpful comments. This research was supported by a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and a Doctoral Research Award from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). I am also grateful to the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and Miyuki Iiyama for hosting me as a Degree Fellow in Nairobi during my fieldwork.