Agriculture: Biofuels
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help improve the availability of feedstocks for the production of renewable fuels.
Answered by Mary Creagh
British farmers are world-leaders and know their own land best - carefully planning their planting to suit the weather, their soil type, and their long-term agronomic strategy.
The demand for UK produced crops is subject to global market prices and supply. Crop varieties grown in the UK can be of a specification for food, feed and/or bioenergy standards. This provides an in-built flexibility for farmers seeking an end-use market for their product. For farmers, the opportunity to sell into bioenergy often offers a secondary market for their surplus or lower quality crops and associated agricultural residues. The production of biofuels also produces valuable by-products including protein rich animal feed which is used by livestock farmers.
In 2023, 133 thousand hectares of agricultural land in the UK were used to grow crops for bioenergy. This area represents 2.2% of the arable land in the UK. 36% of land used for bioenergy was for biofuel (biodiesel and bioethanol) in the UK road transport market with the remainder mostly used for heat and power production.
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