Oil seed rape/canola field: for food or fuel?

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European plans to provide 20 per cent of EU energy from renewable sources - which are contained in a leaked draft of the EU renewable energy directive - have been warmly welcomed by Friends of the Earth. But, the environmental campaign group warned that plans for a huge increase in agro-fuels (biofuels) seriously undermine the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help the world's poor.

A leak of the draft directive (which is due to be published in January 2008),  says that 20 per cent of EU energy must come from renewable sources by 2020.  And, as part of this strategy, all transport fuels must contain at least 10 per cent agro-fuels by 2020.

Friends of the Earth's Campaigns Director, Mike Childs, said: "EU plans to promote a massive increase in renewable power are extremely welcome. But its proposals to use large quantities of agro-fuels to power our cars is likely to have a major negative impact on the world's poorest people and the environment.  The EU must listen to the growing warnings about this largely unsustainable fuel-source and scrap its damaging agro-fuels plans. Instead it should focus on forcing motor companies to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, and strategies to encourage people out of their cars."

EU plans, outlined in the draft directive, to encourage agro-fuel development  have been criticised by Friends of the Earth for a number of reasons. These  include:

  • Failure to acknowledge the growing international concerns about the impact  of agro-fuels on the environment and food security.

  • Not sufficiently addressing the knock-on effects of pushing up food prices.

  • Not preventing agro-fuel production from pushing other farming activities (e.g. cattle ranching or other crops) into rainforests or other important eco-systems. The Commission proposes simply monitoring the situation.

  • Providing no criteria to protect people in developing countries from the negative impacts of agro-fuel production. Land disputes, forced evictions, human rights abuses and poor working conditions occur frequently in many countries producing crops for Europe. The United Nations warned earlier this year that agro-fuels could be "especially harmful to farmers who do not own their own land, and to the rural and urban poor who are net buyers of food."

  • Introducing limited "sustainability criteria" aimed only at preventing deforestation and damage to wetlands, and ignoring other important eco-systems such as wildlife-rich savannahs, which are threatened (for example, the Brazilian Cerrado). The criteria are only applicable to crops used as fuels in transport, but not for the same fuels used to produce electricity.

  • Preventing EU member states from introducing stronger criteria for more  robust bio-fuel production measures at a national level.

(This was an FoE press release. For more details, go to FoE Europe website and the report.)