According to a study by US researchers, chicken waste could prove a more efficient biofuel than food crops. The study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, found that processing chicken feather meal at high temperatures could produce 153 million gallons of biodiesel annually in the US and 593 million gallons worldwide. [...]

A new scramble for arable land in Tanzania has started – the coastline and the fertile land in Northern and Southern Tanzania being the prime targets. This scramble which has seen thousands of acres of fertile arable land falling into the hands of foreign companies has been engineered by the quest for bio fuels. – [...]

Investment appears to be the way out for Africa, and “there’s no blueprint for this kind of investing: The best opportunities must be dreamed up and then created from scratch”, if the story written by Roben Fazard of Business Week (Can Greed Save Africa) is generalizable to the continent.
The writer showcases Inhassune, a Mozambique [...]

Via VOA:
African government officials, economists and scientists have met for three days in Burkina Faso to discuss the local production and use of biofuels. VOA’s Nico Colombant reports from our West and Central Africa bureau in Dakar.
Take a listen:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Credit: Nico Colombant, Dakar VOA.
Read full text: http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-11-29-voa54.cfm

Jatropha is a hardy poisonous plant with seeds that produce oil when crushed. This oil can be “used in a standard diesel car, while the residue can also be processed into biomass to power electricity plants” (Wikipedia). This plant grows well in sub-Saharan Africa.
Some excerpts:
NYT: Mali’s Farmers Discover a Weed’s Potential Power
The plant is [...]