One of Britain’s leading biofuels companies is facing criticism for encouraging the growth of jatropha – a toxic weed that produces seeds that can be refined into biodiesel – in developing countries.

The oil major BP has a joint venture with D1 Oils to plant up to a million hectares of the crop over the next four years. But critics say that planting targets are unrealistic and that yields are not good enough for commercial use.

“They are very optimistic about yields that they are not realising,” Raymond Jongschaap, of the plant sciences group at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands, said. ... Read full article