EU Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen is in favor of more biofuel in view of low grain and high fuel prices. "We currently have very, very low prices for grain," the politician told the German Press Agency in Brussels. After the very strong global harvest in the fall, some farmers only achieved a selling price of 160 or 170 euros per ton of grain. "Every farmer is putting money on the table when they produce, that has to be said quite clearly."
With prices well below 200 euros per tonne, the requirements for the production of biofuels should be relaxed, Hansen demanded. In the EU, there is a cap on the share that "biofuels from food and feed crops" can have in the energy consumption of the transport sector in the individual EU member states. This means that there are fewer expansion incentives for grain-based biofuels - in contrast to fuels obtained from biowaste, for example. One of the reasons for this is the controversy over whether grain should be grown for energy production or as food ("tank or plate").
