[holding answer 10 March 2010]: The Government are determined to ensure that biomass, whether imported or produced in the UK: delivers real and substantive carbon dioxide savings; uses land responsibly avoiding damaging land use change; and does not undermine global food supplies or inflate prices.
A study carried out by E4Tech to inform the UK’s 2009 Renewable Energy Strategy, examined the availability of biomass supplies. The results indicate that there could be sufficient biomass resource potential in the UK for bio-energy to play a significant role in meeting the renewable energy target in 2020, and that imported biomass feedstocks could increasingly become a traded commodity. The study assumed that food demands are met first, and only considered the potential for UK energy crops from land currently not used for arable crops. The study also considered unexploited UK biomass reserves such as energy from waste and bringing back into production forest and woodland that has fallen out of good management practice. These sources of biomass do not compete with food crops and so do not impact on food prices.
Biomass used for the production of transport biofuels currently accounts for approximately 1 per cent. of global land use. The Government undertook an assessment of the causes and implications of the agricultural food price spike in 2007-08 (published on 5 January and available on DEFRA’s website as part of the Food 2030 package). The report concluded that biofuels had not been a significant cause of recent food price spikes worldwide. For the longer term, we are supporting the development of “second generation” technology which could produce biofuels from non food sources such as algae, wood, straw and food waste, so reducing pressure on food crops and land.
We will continue to monitor the impact of our bio-energy targets on food prices.