ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the idea of 'discursive flexibility' to examine how claims about jatropha's potential to achieve multiple goals have shaped its recent history. Liquid fuel has been the focus of most recent jatropha initiatives. When jatropha seeds are crushed, the resulting straight vegetable oil (SVO) can be burned in modified lamps and used in some diesel engines. Jatropha cannot easily 'flex' in the sense of producers or investors deciding which of several products to make from it. La Via Campesina asserted that agrofuel production would divert food crops for fuel, influence which crops were planted and compete with food production for irrigation water. The actors associated with jatropha have shown remarkable flexibility in producing and maintaining discourses about the crop. While materialist explanations of crop flexibility are important to understanding the dynamics of agrofuels, they can be further enhanced by adding an analytical layer that probes the influences of shifting and interacting discourses.
