UK National Farmers' Union leads biofuels fightback

It began in March, when NFU deputy president Meurig Raymond expressed his disappointment with the government’s budget. He said: “We are concerned at what appears to be a strong undercurrent of hostility and lack of understanding to British-produced biofuels, which runs through the Budget small print.”

He berated the British government for “paying too much attention to the myths that surround biofuels and not enough to the facts. British-produced biofuels are sustainable and can make a very real contribution to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, in transport especially. They should be encouraged by the Government, not undermined."

Distinction
The baton was picked up by NFU president Peter Kendall in April. He used the opportunity of National Biofuels Day (April 15th) to highlight the distinction between biofuels produced sustainably, that yield genuine greenhouse gas savings, and biofuels produced elsewhere in the world, with fewer environmental safeguards.

"There is a world of difference between biofuels grown on cleared rain-forest and then transported half way across the globe and those grown sustainably here in Britain. British-grown and processed biofuels achieve savings of up to 64 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions compared with petrol or diesel, they will be grown in accordance with independently monitored farm assurance standards and they will yield as much high protein animal feed as they do bioethanol and biodiesel," he said.

Minor factor
Mr. Kendall said the impact of biofuels on world food supplies and prices had been grossly exaggerated. Less than one per cent of the world's wheat crop was used for bioethanol production last year, yet wheat prices more than doubled, he said.

"It is the world's demand for food that is driving prices up", said Mr. Kendall. "Biofuels are a relatively minor factor in the overall equation. Even the EU target of 10 per cent inclusion rate by 2020 will have only minor impact on prices. The EU Commission has calculated there are 18 million hectares of land available from the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy, MiM) reform.”

Moratorium
Earlier this month, the riposte continued with the NFU rejecting calls from the House of Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee for a moratorium on the government’s biofuels target, explaining that, “land availability in the UK means farmers and growers can produce enough crops for the fuel targets without effecting traditional production needs such as food and feed.”

Balance
Mr. Kendall speculates the recent backlash against biofuels may be being if not explicitly instigated, then at least implicitly supported by the fossil fuel industry. Given this backlash, the NFU’s fightback is providing some much needed balance to the biofuels debate, at a national level at least.

Indeed, after some wavering earlier in the year, the EU now seems to have clarified its own position on biofuels and biofuels targets. In an article in The Guardian newspaper on August 29th, EU Commissioner for Trade Peter Mandelson, was reported as saying: “The issue is not biofuels or no biofuels, but the right biofuels." Similarly, EU Agricultural Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, recently stated: “Biofuels must be part of the future of sustainable energy production.”

With some sense of perspective back in the biofuels picture, hopefully producers and regulators will now be given the space and the support to drive us all towards that future.

Related article

8 May 2008 - Biofuels backlash - the world food crisis in perspective