Open Letter to European Commissioners: Bioeconomy Alliance calls on EU policymakers to resist discrimination against certain uses of biomass
The European Bioeconomy Alliance, of which ePURE is a member, published the following letter to European Commissioners:
A thriving bioeconomy is crucial to the EU effort to move beyond fossil-feedstock dependence and toward a circular, carbon-neutral economy.
The European Bioeconomy Alliance (EUBA) brings together a wide range of sectors providing 29 million jobs in the production, use, refining and transformation of bio-based renewable feedstocks into food, feed, chemicals, manufacturing materials, biofuels, and solid and gaseous biomass fuels. Many of these products can successfully be deployed across sectors and industries, with equal or better performance than fossil-based competitors. We are already making a real-world difference in shifting from fossil-based to bio-based materials, energy and chemicals.
The forthcoming EU Bioeconomy Strategy will be especially important in setting a more direct course to Europe's net-zero and circular economy goals. As the Commission finalises the Strategy and recognises the importance of the EU bioeconomy, we urge it to resist discriminating against certain uses of biomass – even when those applications are proven as sustainable and are already contributing to EU circular economy and net-zero ambitions.
The bioeconomy and food/feed production in Europe are not opposing forces but rather work in synergy to build a sustainable future. By moving beyond outdated narratives such as the ‘food vs fuel’ debate, we can foster more balanced and innovative policy approaches that support both environmental goals and food security
As a new report from the nova-Institut think tank confirms, using first-generation agricultural biomass to produce bio-based energy and materials in Europe results in important benefits for food security, biodiversity, agriculture and climate-change mitigation. The new study from the nova-Institut confirms that the EU has the biomass resources necessary to realise the strategy and dispels myths about the use of first-generation agricultural biomass, such as starch, sugar and oilseed crops.
As the report states, “Despite widespread concern and frequent policy pushback against the use of first-generation biomass for industrial applications, often originating from concerns of undermining food security, scientific evidence suggests that these concerns are largely misplaced. The debate is shaped by emotional and political arguments rather than robust data or a comprehensive understanding of the global food system.”
The new research highlights four key benefits to the EU from the use of biomass including traditional crops for non-food applications such as fuels, chemicals and materials:
- Enhancing a resilient and competitive EU agriculture: Selling crops to multiple markets and uses gives farmers
greater flexibility and reduces their vulnerability to price fluctuations in any single sector; it also encourages investment in innovation and sustainable practices, as farmers can diversify their income and adapt to changes in the market. - Increased food security: Using first-generation biomass for non-food/feed applications strengthens food security in several important ways. This includes improved market stability through delivering protein-rich by-products, providing good availability of food crops and long-
term scalability for starch, sugar and oil crops in the EU, all while providing an emergency food reserve in times of crisis. - Supporting climate change mitigation: In order to defossilise European industry – critical for net-zero targets in chemical
- and fuel sectors – the use of first-generation biomass is indispensable. Although second-generation biomass is widely accepted, first-generation biomass can usually be produced at lower cost and scaled up more easily and significantly.
- Supporting biodiversity protection: Food crops are the most efficient use of land for producing starch, sugar and plant oils; maximising the productivity of each hectare reduces the total land area required for agriculture, leaving more space for nature and biodiversity protection.
The Bioeconomy Strategy should be a win-win opportunity for the EU: to defossilise the economy, while supporting farmers’ revenue and food production and reducing our dependencies.
Now is the time for the EU to enable Europe’s bioeconomy sectors to contribute to the net-zero goal with policies that are consistent, not hamper them by perpetuating long-disproven arguments about first-generation biomass.
There is no trade-off among the EU’s ambitions for the circular economy, climate change mitigation, food security, and industrial and agricultural autonomy. A strong domestic bioeconomy helps deliver on all these fronts.
