Great aims, small gains: Jatropha-based biofuels and competing discourses of development in Kenya

Biofuels have received significant recent attention for their perceived potential to promote climate change mitigation, energy security, and rural development, even as critical scholarship has challenged each of these claims. Jatropha curcas, a hardy shrub with inedible oilseeds, gained prominence among donors, investors and the media due to hopes that it could produce renewable energy without compromising food production. This thesis investigates the promotion of Jatropha in Kenya and situates these observations in relation to international discourses and policies on biofuels. Adopting a political ecology perspective, it examines the rise of interest in Jatropha in relation to themes of power, development and scale. Drawing on field work conducted in 2009, this research asks how Jatropha came to be promoted as an energy crop in Kenya, and compares the experiences of small-scale farmers with the motivations and claims of NGO, government, private sector, donor, and research representatives.;Findings include that different actors attached strikingly different discourses of development to Jatropha: one market-led, focusing on large-scale goals; another livelihood-oriented, focusing on small-scale goals. Neither of these had become dominant, nor had any related activities produced a significant amount of fuel from Jatropha at the time of research. Consistent with Hilhorst's (2001) 'duality of discourse,' this coexistence of perspectives produced competition, but also granted actors the flexibility to invoke Jatropha as a means of achieving a variety of objectives. This was evident in Mpeketoni, Coast Province, where farmers, donors, and project coordinators approached a Jatropha initiative with different priorities, but showed signs of mutual learning and potential to achieve multiple goals. A second finding is that a lack of reliable information about Jatropha created a climate of uncertainty where conflicting views could spread unchecked. In Nguruman, Rift Valley Province, farmers who already grew Jatropha as fencing were exposed to mixed messages and wildly fluctuating price signals from seed buyers from outside the area, leading to confusion and diverse expectations. The multiple discourses that this research shows have been activated to encourage the spread of Jatropha among small-scale farmers in Kenya are equally relevant in other contexts where biofuels are concerned.