Biofuel policies under pressure

for backing GM technology as it offered a means to combating hunger. The document, arising from the meeting sponsored by the academy in 2009, only emerged in the wider public domain last year. Apparently around 40 scientists, including a handful of academy members, met behind closed doors to discuss transgenic plants and food security in the context of development. The EU's new proposal suggests that pro-GM countries such as Spain and the Netherlands can increase production, while allowing others such as Germany and Austria to maintain restrictions. And GM crop production is increasing. In 2007, genetically modified maize was grown on a total of nearly 110,000 hectares in Spain, France, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Germany. In the previous year, GM plantings comprised just 62,000 hectares, approximately one per cent of maize cultivation within the EU. Genetically modified maize — containing a gene from a bacterium that produces a toxin to defend it from the European corn borer (Bt maize) — is the only commercially grown GM crop. The European corn borer is present primarily in southern and central Europe, but is slowly making its way north as new corn breeds make the plants viable in long summer-daylength conditions. Spain is the leading European country growing Bt maize and accounts for most of the EU's crop. But widespread public opposition in the EU to the introduction of GM crops, as seen in a public demonstration in Brussels last month, is likely to make any expansion difficult and challenging. Vatican thinking: There are suggestions that advisers to the Catholic Church may back GM crops. (Picture: Photolibrary.) The US has attracted many critics for its policy on biofuels, particularly the use of crops that otherwise could produce food, and does little to combat the emission of greenhouse gases. The biofuels policy took a hit last month when 17 senators signed a letter calling ethanol 'fiscally indefensible' and 'environmentally unwise'. Led by Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican Jon Kyl, the group argued that Congress shouldn't extend certain subsidies that were due to expire at the end of last year, including the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline and tariffs on cheaper imports. Conservatives dislike the costly industrial policy, while liberals are against the hefty carbon emissions that come with corn fuels, the Wall Street Journal reported. And energy secretary, Steven Chu, told a meeting of the National Press Club last month …