Irish farms can be used for biofuels, event told

LARGE TRACTS of Irish farmland could be reassigned for biofuel production without causing a rise in food prices or a reduction in agricultural production, a seminar on climate change has heard.

Irish beef and dairy farmers could switch up to 20 per cent of their grassland to biofuel production without affecting agricultural output, Dr Kevin McDonnell of UCD’s school of food science said.

There was “huge potential” in biofuel production in Ireland, and locally produced fuel could compete with product from abroad, he told the seminar organised by UCD’s Earth System Institute.

The trend of farmers moving from food to fuel production was widely blamed for a spike in food prices in recent years. Dr McDonnell defended use of food crops such as wheat for fuel production, and said the cause of the spike was “far more complex” and related principally to oil price hikes.

Irish farmers, Dr McDonnell said, would enter fuel production if they saw value in the business. Farmers could allocate 20 per cent of their grassland to biofuel production, and achieve the same output elsewhere by intensifying use of the rest of their land. He also said his research showed there was a market for an Irish plant producing ethanol from sugar beet, wheat or straw.