Gotcha, Kenyan Farmer Style

Now, if I was a farmer, I would be extremely dubious if someone claimed I should replace my usual crop with a weed in a time of drought. I would be more dubious if the someone was claiming this weed made more fuel than other biofuel plants and would require less tending and less water to grow than other plants. The cure all plant is called Jatropha.

Too bad this someone was the government and the farmers believed. They were promised the seeds from the plants would be in growing demand and fetch about $13 per kilo. Then the farmers were promised advice with the new crop. Just to keep the list going they also said each plant would make a kilo of seed each - you can hear the cash registers going ka-ching right in the farmers' heads.

To cash in on this the farmers were sold "certified seeds" at extra cost.

They weren't told was that the information was mostly off of the Internet.

Can I get a "Those are regular seeds and the plant isn't anything like promised!" No shit the farmers got burnt.

Now the farmers know there is no proven way to make Jatropha grow in any large quantity. Sometimes one plant grows successfully somewhere. When it does grow it will make about 200g of seed instead of 1000kg since it requires so much water. Yes, when a real study came in it said Jatropha requires more water per liter of fuel than most others.

The farmers also know the plant if very fragile when young, not suited for arid conditions like they were told.

Then when they did get seed nobody wanted to buy them.

Someone got the farmers good. I assume that someone wears a monocle and twirls his mustache with a maniacal laugh. Classic evil genius.

Here's the TIME original:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1927538,00.html