The Making of Speculative Biodiesel Commodities on the Agroenergy Frontier of the Brazilian Northeast

In this paper, I examine the speculative dimensions of biodiesel production in Northeast Brazil under the National Program for the Production and Use of Biodiesel (PNPB), by focusing on the case of castor oil plant (Ricinus communis) in semi-arid Bahia, a promising flex crop that was said to generate social, environmental and economic benefits, especially for the historically marginalised Northeast peasantry. I argue that speculative practices over castor have relied on state policies and discourses as well as biophysical and biotechnological (im)materialities that are transforming agrarian relations in ways that compromise peasants’ control over their (re)productive systems while promoting the expansion of the agroindustrial frontier. By examining the everyday, performative and place-based character of speculative biodiesel practices and their uneven and contested socioenvironmental implications, this paper contributes to current political ecology debates on the nexus between agroenergy development, nature’s capitalist valuation and rural dispossession.