While cutting down rainforests to grow palm oil for biofuels may constitute "madness" (1 December 2007, p 50), burning other vegetable oils is no more sane, nor less damaging to Indonesia's rainforests. Indonesia is expected to increase its palm oil production by more than half over the next 10 years. This is driven, in part, by China, which used to buy rapeseed oil from Europe for food and for industrial uses, but is switching to Indonesian palm oil because Europe's cars and trucks now burn the rapeseed oil as a biofuel.

Many biofuels are associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions but have greater aggregate environmental costs than gasoline.

For long, Hevelie Shohe and her family have been growing upland paddy on their traditional 'jhum' land on the hills of this Sema Naga village of Nagaland, but have had little to save. This autumn, the 45 year old farmer is busy taking care of the jatropha saplings she planted on one hectare of 'jhum' land. She hopes to double her income when they mature and their seeds sold for extraction of green fuel. Dec 2007

India has planted a million Jatropha curcas seedlings on unused land along its tracks and elsewhere. It

FEARS of scientists at the Indira Gandhi Agriculture University, Raipur, about the possible transfer of germplasm of Jatropha Carcus (see

The opportunities in biodiesel are manifold. A renewable, environment-friendly source of energy is something India desperately needs. There is no question about that. But that doesn't mean the questions aren't there. There is already a strong realisation that the economic reforms of the 1990s haven't helped improve the rural economy.