New figures from the European Commission confirm the EU agriculture sector’s ability to meet food supply needs and allay concerns that demand for renewable biofuels will cause strain on the market says the European Renewable Ethanol Association (ePURE).
In its Short-term outlook for EU agricultural markets in 2022, the Commission once again confirms the EU has no shortage of supply of food, but rather is largely self-sufficient ‘with a massive agri-food trade surplus’ enabling the Single Market to absorb the shocks related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
EU renewable ethanol producers stand in solidarity with Ukraine. Russia’s invasion has highlighted the urgency of supporting EU food and energy security by mobilizing an array of domestic resources, remarked Simona Vackeová, Secretary-General ad interim of ePURE.
Fossil fuel prices driving inflation
According to the Commission, concerns regarding food affordability are due to the higher price of fossil oil and gas, which are prominent drivers of inflation in the eurozone (EUR) throughout 2022.
The European Commission foresees the EU’s capacity to increase EU arable crops, including cereals production, which is expected to reach 297.7 million tonnes in 2022/23, an increase of 1.5 percent from the previous year.
Although the Commission expects a certain reduction of cereals for use in renewable ethanol production, ePURE highlights that the EU can “count on the EU biorefineries sector to continue the supply of high-protein, GMO-free animal feed in synergy with other important co-products in the food value chain such as sugar, starch, and vegetable oil while still helping the EU drive to carbon-neutrality.”
The European renewable ethanol industry already plays a strategic role in this as an important domestic source of high-protein animal feed and other products that reduce the need for EU feed and food imports, said Simona Vackeová.
In short, according to ePURE, EU biorefineries play a major strategic role in securing food and high-protein feed supply and helping consumers to access affordable transport modes, thus reducing EU energy dependency as well as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transport sector.
Specifically, EU renewable ethanol production contributes to:
- Reducing EU food and feed dependency: EU renewable ethanol production generates significant high-protein, GMO-free animal feed. Each tonne of ethanol automatically generates 1 tonne of such animal feed. In 2019, European ethanol producers supplied overall more than 4.5 million tonnes of animal feed. A significant share of EU renewable ethanol production takes place in complete synergy with sugar and starch production and generates a variety of other food and non-food products such as vegetable oil, gluten (used in pasta, and animal feed), vinasses (natural fertilizers), and captured biogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) to replace fossil CO2 in the cold chain, greenhouses, and beverages.
- Ensuring strategic sanitary production: Alcohol is not only dedicated to the fuel market as more than 20 percent of EU production is used in food and industrial applications. Thanks to the flexibility of European biorefineries, EU renewable ethanol producers acted quickly during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to offer and supply alcohol to hospitals and civil society to be used as disinfectant and hand sanitizers. The EU did not suffer from any shortage or any import dependency on these products thanks to EU renewable ethanol plants which would not exist if it were not for the EU renewable energy policy.
- Reducing EU energy dependency: The use of renewable ethanol offsets the consumption of imported fossil petrol (gasoline). Today, most EU petrol cars can run on E10 (containing a maximum of 10 percent renewable ethanol blend in petrol) and in certain EU countries, citizens take advantage of E85 (containing up to 85 percent ethanol). Moreover, renewable ethanol is an essential oxygenate for petrol quality reducing the import of fossil-based products.
