No link between biofuels and food crisis - EU

14 April 2008 12:55  [Source: ICIS news]

PARIS (ICIS news)--The European Commission (EC) sees no need to scrap controversial targets for increasing biofuel production despite concerns about rising food prices, it said on Monday.

The World Bank had blamed the worldwide shift towards biofuel production for part of the sharp rise in basic food costs, an increase that it claims could leave millions without enough to eat.

But the EC said it saw “no significant impact” within the EU from the decision to set the goal of increasing biofuel use to 20% of total fuels by 2020.

“If the status quo were to continue for ever, we calculate that we would need to use 17% of current EU arable land to meet the biofuels target,” an EC spokesman said.

“But the status quo will not continue," he added.

“We are seeing higher yields, more land being cultivated in new member states such as Poland, Bulgaria and Romania and a shift towards second-generation biofuels [which are not based on food crops], so we see only a very small share of our current arable land being used for biofuels.”

The biofuels targets - set as part of a package of measures designed to tackle climate change - were only binding if “they are implemented in a sustainable way and include a shift towards second-generation biofuels,” the spokesman added.

Bookmark Simon Robinson's Big Biofuels Blog for some independent thinking on biofuels

By: Chris Jones
+44 20 8652 3214

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