Expert Says Biofuels Not Behind Inflation

Urging politicians not to scrap mandatory biofuel targets, Richard Whitlock, from agricultural experts Frontier, said that the world was not short of land or food and that political dithering was fuelling the current food crisis, reports Farmers Guardian.

“The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation say that one billion people do not get enough food but 50 per cent of all the food we produce in the world is wasted and millions of square kilometres of land are available for agricultural production,” he said.

According to the FAO, world agriculture currently uses 15 million km˛ for agriculture out of a total 41m km˛ that could potentially be used. Biofuels currently account for 0.1m km˛ and the FAO estimate that figure to rise to 0.3m km² by 2030.

“Biofuel production uses a relatively small proportion of land,” he said.

Mr Whitlock said that the greatest input into the rise in food prices was energy, not biofuels and that sustainable biofuels offered real greenhouse gas savings against fossil fuels. He said the government must hold firm in the face of NGO calls to scrap biofuel targets.

View the Farmers Guardian story by clicking here.

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