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Fuel can also be obtained from food and feed crops
Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images
The federal government will restrict the use of agricultural products as fuel additives - Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) announced this.
She is working together with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to reduce the use of so-called biofuels from food and feed plants, Lemke told the "Augsburger Allgemeine".
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The trigger for this step was the war in Ukraine.
"Agricultural land is limited worldwide, we urgently need it for food, the war in Ukraine is a dramatic reminder of that," said the politician.
Agricultural land should be used for food production, not for the tank.
According to the Federal Environment Ministry, consultations are still ongoing.
Details and a concrete framework for the reduction could not be given at this point in time.
Lemke pointed out that from 2023 palm oil will no longer be recognized as a biofuel additive in diesel.
She now also wants to reduce the further use of agrofuels from food and feed crops.
Currently, seven percent of vegetable oil products are usually added to diesel.
Gasoline is usually mixed with five to ten percent bioethanol, which is usually made from grain and beets.
The aim of these measures is to reduce the CO₂ balance.
Özdemir and Schulze support the project
But how sustainable the addition of biofuels actually is has been debated for a long time.
"It is not sustainable to pour wheat and corn into the tank," said Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir (Greens) at the end of March.
The produce from the land planted around the world for this practice could feed starving people.
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Development Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) made a similar statement.
»In Germany alone, five percent of the arable land is used for biofuel production.
If we succeed in gaining this area step by step for food production, that would be a gain for food security," she told the "Handelsblatt".
According to the Ministry of the Environment, biofuel from food and feed crops will cover around four percent of the energy consumption in road traffic this year.
"This amount of energy corresponds to about 9.8 million tons of raw materials such as wheat, rapeseed, corn and soybeans," the ministry said.
However, the authority also pointed out that only about nine percent of the food and feed that would be required for the biofuels used came directly from Germany.
The remaining amount is grown abroad and imported.
In Germany, however, "a lot of biofuel for export" is produced.
criticism from the industry
The opposition has voiced criticism of the government plans.
"Biofuels significantly reduce the need for fossil fuels and thus contribute to security of supply and less dependency," said CSU politician Andreas Lenz.
There was also resistance in industry.
»Due to the high agricultural prices, production is already being significantly restricted.
So the minister wants to regulate something by law that the market has already reacted to," said Elmar Baumann, Managing Director of the Association of the German Biofuel Industry (VDB).
Baumann described biofuels as an essential building block for climate protection in the mobility sector.
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At the end of March, the environmental organization »Transport & Environment« published a study on biofuels – with clear results.
“The vast majority of biofuels used in the EU” is made from agricultural products that could also serve as food.
Since Russia and the Ukraine were threatened by the war as "important suppliers of basic foodstuffs," it was "irresponsible" to use the products for fuel production.
The organization calculated that “10,000 tons of wheat” – the equivalent of 15 million loaves of bread – are currently being processed into ethanol for cars in Europe every day.
vki/dpa