Malian weed brings light to mud-hut villages

"They came to explain the project to us and said that if we grow jatropha it can produce oil to make the machine work," said Daouda Doumbia, 53, a Simiji elder.

"I grow groundnuts and this activity can go alongside it as a partner crop," he said, throwing water from a bucket over a small plot of jatropha bushes.

Interest in biofuels is booming around the world, triggered by high oil prices, energy security fears, limited spare refinery capacity and concerns about climate change.

Some developing countries are hoping to cash in on the boom: the president of neighboring Senegal wants Africa to become the world's primary supplier of biofuels, while India has set aside 1.72 million hectares of land for jatropha cultivation.

But Mali's ambitions are more modest, for the time being.

Samake said a raft of private companies, some from as far away as France and Israel, were interested in developing a jatropha industry in Mali. But they had been told no biofuel would leave the country until its own needs were met.

"We don't intend to produce biofuel to send abroad but to satisfy the energy needs of the 80 percent of Malians who live in rural communities," Samake said.

Jatropha is grown on a small scale in some of Mali's villages. But it is already finding converts among the youngest members of the community.

"We're happy to see light. We can play in the evenings. We can play all night," said Fousseyni Doumbia, 12, drawing a disapproving look from an elder.

"We can also do our homework," he added with a cheeky grin.