She calculated that this approach would push up would raw material prices
for cereal by 3 percent to 6 percent by 2020, while prices for oilseed
might rise 5 percent to 18 percent. But food prices on the shelves would barely change, she said.
Yet even as the European program begins to harvest biofuels in greater
volume, homegrown production is still far short of what is needed to reach the 10 percent goal: Europe’s farmers produced an estimated 2.9 billion
liters, or 768 million gallons, of biofuel in 2004, far shy of the 3.4 billion gallons generated in the United States in the period. In 2005,
biofuel accounted for around 1 percent of Europe’s fuel, according to European statistics, with almost all of that in Germany and Sweden. The
biofuel share in Italy was 0.51 percent, and in Britain, 0.18 percent.
That could pose a threat to European markets as foreign producers like
Brazil or developing countries like Indonesia and Malaysia try to ship their biofuels to markets where demand, subsidies and tax breaks are the
greatest.
Ms. Fischer Boel recently acknowledged that Europe would have to import at least a third of what it would need to reach its 10 percent biofuels
target. Politicians fear that could hamper development of a local industry, while perversely generating tons of new emissions as “green” fuel is shipped thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic, instead of coming from the farm next door.
Such imports could make biofuel far less green in other ways as well — for example if Southeast Asian rainforest is destroyed for cropland.
Brazil, a country with a perfect climate for sugar cane and vast amounts of land, started with subsidies years ago to encourage the farming of sugarcane for biofuels, partly to take up “excess capacity” in its flagging agricultural sector.
The auto industry jumped in, too. In 2003, Brazilian automakers started producing flex-fuel cars that could run on biofuels, including locally produced ethanol. Today, 70 percent of new cars in the country are flex-fuel models, and Brazil is one of the largest growers of cane for ethanol.
Analysts are unsure if the Brazilian achievement can be replicated in Europe — or anywhere else. Sugar takes far less energy to convert to biofuel than almost any product.
Yet after a series of alarming reports on climate change, the political urgency to move faster is clearly growing.
With an armload of incentives, the Italian government hopes that 70,000
hectares, or 173,000 acres, of land will be planted with biofuel crops in 2007, and 240,000 hectares in 2010, up from zero in 2006.
Mr. Pini, the farmer, has converted about 25 percent of his land, or 18 hectares, including his “set aside” land, to Europe’s fastest-growing biofuel crop, rapeseed. He still has 50 hectares in grain and 7 in olives.
He has discovered other advantages as well. In Italy’s finicky food culture, food crops have to look good and be high quality to sell— a
drought or undue heat can mean an off year. Crops for fuel, in contrast,
can be ugly or stunted.
“You need fewer seeds and it’s much easier to grow,” he said.