Tough call on biofuel standards.(VIEWPOINT)

Sodden fields, damaged crops and flooded buildings: Don't let anyone tell you climate change isn't happening. And if farmers must suffer downsides, they should also work hard to extract all the upsides of climate change that they can.

Rhetoric about the biofuel opportunity is well rehearsed. Farmers have good scope to profit from fuel crops--but like so many things in life it isn't a black-and-white opportunity.

New information is emerging as fast as plans for new biofuel processing plants are announced. In this issue of Crops you can read how proposed EU rules could set challenging standards for greenhouse gas and carbon savings, environmental footprints and net energy savings. Meeting those targets will be paramount to the success or failure of what could be a crucial underpinning of UK commodity markets in the years ahead.

The announcement of provisional standards for biofuels is both good news and bad news. The upside is that science should prevail. The downside is that UK feedstocks look inferior to supplies from the higher yielding, lower cost tropics.

The threat is that almost every biofuel processing facility is being sited adjacent to deep water ports. The challenge for the UK industry is to unite in finding data to prove UK feedstocks can compete and supply those processors. Key to ...