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.

中文翻译：

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巴西东北部农业能源边界上投机性生物柴油商品的生产

在本文中，我重点研究了蓖麻油厂（Ricinus communis）的案例，研究了巴西东北部根据国家生物柴油生产和使用计划（PNPB）生产生物柴油的投机规模。）在半干旱的巴伊亚州（Bahia），一种很有前途的弯曲作物，据说可以产生社会，环境和经济效益，特别是对历史上处于边缘地位的东北农民。我认为，对蓖麻的投机行为依赖于国家政策和话语以及生物物理和生物技术（im）物质，这些物质正在改变农业关系，从而损害农民对其（再）生产系统的控制，同时促进了农工工业的发展。边境。通过考察投机性生物柴油做法的日常性，执行性和基于场所的特征及其不均衡和有争议的社会环境影响，本文有助于就农业能源发展，自然资本主义估价与农村处置之间的联系进行当前的政治生态学辩论。