QIUNATONG, China — On a drizzling afternoon in this village in northwest Yunnan province, a Chinese New Year party is underway at He Bao Shang’s earth-walled home. Children chase frightened chickens through the 32-year-old farmer’s kitchen-slash-living room while a group of men consume shots of a potent corn-based liquor at a pace so feverish that, later, they forget to eat dinner. The constant plume of cigarette smoke combines with a single bare light-bulb to give the room a distinct speakeasy vibe.

CHIMOIO, Mozambique — The lines of small bushy plants stretch out across the rolling hills of central Mozambique, dew-covered and shining in the morning sunlight. Peter Whitehead walks down the rows smiling like only a father can at the somewhat scrubby, greasy little jatropha shrubs. Whitehead, a forester from Knysna, South Africa, is starting up a farm of jatropha trees as a source of biofuel oil.