A preliminary study on biofuel production in Mozambique has suggested
that the most appropriate crops to use would be sunflower, sugar cane
and sweet sorghum, according to a repot in allAfrica.com. The report points out the difficulty of trying to grow a fuel crop which is also a food crop:
Iberol had intended to produce biofuels from sunflower, but the chairperson of the Nutasa group, of which Iberol is part, Joao Rodrigues, told the Portuguese news agency LUSA that it had run into "many difficulties", notably the theft of the crop at harvest time, and the shortage of skilled labour.
Rodrigues blamed this on "social problems", notably food shortages among the population. "How can I make vegetable oil for fuel when the people living in front of the plantation don't have oil to make food?", he asked. "It didn't go well, and it's not worth wasting any more effort".