Biofuels Trigger Food Price Increase

[pioneer]

By BBC News

European Union lawmakers have voted to set a limit on targets to increase the use of road transport biofuels.

Campaigners say that biofuels from grains and food crops contribute to food price inflation.

The original EU target that 10% of all road transport fuel should come from renewable sources by 2020 did not set limits for crop biofuels.

A committee of the European Parliament has now voted to limit such fuels to 6% of the 10% target.

At least 4% of the total will have to be achieved using electricity or hydrogen from renewable sources, or from second-generation biofuels from waste or non-food crops.

Green MEP Claude Turmes, of Luxembourg, welcomed the decision.

"While the maintenance of a binding target for biofuels is a bitter pill to swallow, the committee has at least strengthened the safeguards against the damaging impact of agri-fuels in this directive," he said.

The panel also approved a mid-term goal of 5% of road transport fuel from renewable sources by 2015, of which one fifth should not be food crop-based biofuels.

[bolingitboy]

biofuels is bad news!!! production of biofuels will put food supply in jeopardy. if britain does not have any food shortages, let them produce all the biofuels that they want. but in our reality in the philippines, we have a rice shortage problem and we need all the land that we can get to plant to this staple. both biofuels and food need the same land resource so the bottom line question would be this: which would we rather have? additives for gasoline or food to eat? there are other alternative fuels such as hydrogen which is much better and much, much cheaper than biofuels so it makes me wonder why there is not one among our lawmakers and technocrats that are looking in that direction.