Biodiesel and the cultivation of energy-yielding crops have become for many countries an important component of energy planning. But few have embraced biofuels with the single-minded zeal of Burma, where the military junta has launched a massive national campaign to grow jatropha, whose seeds are crushed and processed to produce oil.

In the quest for cash to fill its coffers, the regime is aiming to cultivate 8m acres of jatropha – still largely unproven as a suitable crop for biofuel – by 2009. An official recently proclaimed that Burma wished to export large quantities of biofuel from jatropha.