Much of the talk at the recent Miami Conference on the Caribbean Basin in Florida was about biofuels… and how they could help the impoverished economies of the Caribbean.

This story in Ft. Lauderdale (FL) Sun-Sentinel talks about biodiesel and ethanol devlopment and what it means for the Caribbean:

“In today’s world and in today’s agriculture, there is no more critical issue than energy,” Chelston W.D. Brathwaite, director general of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture, told the annual conference. “[The biofuels push] could change the whole geopolitical balance in the world, if countries become more energy self-sufficient.”

So far, it seems like Brazil is the only Latin American country that’s really cashing in on biofuels on a large scale. But the article goes on to say that Brazilian companies are looking to expand throughout the region… hopefully bringing some of the prosperity that the Brazilians have received from ethanol and biodiesel.