Bedford Biofuels may abort Kenyan jatropha project

In Canada, Bedford Biofuels is considering aborting their Kenyan jatropha plan to cultivate 60,000 hectares of the crop after four years of failures have left the leased land completely undeveloped. Bedford cites the poor economic climate as the reason the project has been largely unable to accrue investment. While the project aims at eventually constructing a biofuel processing plant in Kenya, the government is now proposing taking a 35% stake of the earnings, making the project largely unprofitable. Despite the setbacks, CEO David McClure remains optimistic about jatropha: “We’re going to run the biggest jatropha plantation on Earth if it kills me.”

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