Citation
(2008), "EU cuts back on biofuel crop subsidies", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 19 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2008.08319bab.003
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2008, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
EU cuts back on biofuel crop subsidies
A special farm aid scheme aimed at developing Europe’s energy crop sector will be scaled back, after it emerged that farmers have already massively shifted production towards biofuels, overshooting a 2 million hectare (ha) target, the Commission has announced.
The amount of land for which farmers may receive a subsidy of €45 per ha in exchange for planting energy crops (such as rapeseed or sugar beet that can be processed into biofuels for cars or biomass for heating or electricity) will be reduced after the scheme proved too popular, the Commission has said.
The programme was introduced in 2004 as part of the reformed Common Agricultural Policy, in order to stimulate the European biofuels sector. At the time, just 0.31 million ha were devoted to biofuel crops and the Commission hoped to raise this to 2.0 million ha in 2007. But with applications already reaching 2.84 million ha in 2007, the EU’s €90 million budget is unable to cope.