Jatropha has risen to prominence in the past decade with claims by its supporters that it can be grown in tropical and subtropical regions on degraded soils and with marginal rainfall not suitable for food crops, yet can produce an oil for lamps and is readily converted to use as diesel fuel for the growers' own use or as a cash crop. Add to this its potential as a crop for smallholders and to provide jobs for rural poor, the subject is both interesting and of importance to development planners and producers. This is a slim volume of less than 100 pages, but is packed with information, or admission of uncertainties – and the latter are important to note. Care needs to be taken not to pick on one sentence that looks promising without reading the whole book thoroughly: from the first page of the forward where “it grows under drought conditions . . .”, but later, on page 27 “at least 600 mm rainfall per annum are needed to flower and set fruit”. Several countries in Africa have that level of rainfall only in their most favourable areas, the very areas needed for food crop production, yet outside companies have promoted widespread planting. At times the information is disturbingly uncertain, such as reported yields from “0.1 . . . to 12 tonnes per hectare” (page 39).

It is only in the second half of the book that references are made to the rural poor and ways that jatropha cultivation might be beneficial in their circumstances, but read carefully this book provides an excellent basis from which to make sensible choices as to where and when to consider jatropha.