Following MEP Dorette Corbey's attack on the EU's biofuels target last week, the argument has continued to rumble across the EU, ahead of this week's World Biofuels Markets event in Brussels, with both sides attracting supporters. Dutch Socialist Corbey says that the target is unrealistic: “We need to make sure that biofuels do not have a detrimental affect on air quality, for example. The second generation of biofuels are not yet in practice and, currently, there are not enough good ones. There is a feeling among some MEPs that a 10% target is too high.”

Last week, he attracted some cautious backing as Josette Sheeran, head of the UN World Food programme, told the European Parliament that world food prices could keep rising until 2010.

The UK government’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, also claimed that the potential impacts of food shortages were “the elephant in the room” while predicting that a 50% increase in food production will be needed by 2030.

Prof Beddington added: “It’s very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy while at the same time meet the enormous demand for food.”

However,  supporters of biofuels were swift to hit back. Clare Wenner, head of the London-based Transport Biofuels Renewable Energy Association, claimed that current production of biofuels “uses about 1% of global land available for agriculture” (the figure is slightly higher across Europe), and that “there is a real danger that blaming biofuels will become a kneejerk reaction that stops us from dealing with the much larger issue of food and energy needs for the next 50 years”.

Wenner’s views were echoed by Oliver Schaefer, policy director of the European Renewable Energy Council, who blamed rising food prices on the changing diets and growing middle-class demands of countries such as China and India.

Nadim Chaudhry, organiser of the World Biofuels markets conference, commented; “Biofuels is a lively and growing issue and much rides on urgent decisions being made by politicians and also on the innovation of industry chiefs and scientific research. There will be plenty of representatives from all sides in Brussels this week, and that can only be healthy.”

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