By Sarah McFarlane
LONDON (Reuters) – Officials from some G7 countries, including Germany and Britain, will push for temporary waivers on biofuels mandates to combat soaring food prices when leaders from the group of wealthy nations meet on Sunday, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The food crisis caused by the war in Ukraine has sparked a food versus biofuel debate, with some policymakers calling for an easing of mandates for blending biofuels into petrol and diesel to increase the supply of global grain and vegetable oil.
“We’re quite keen to look at the issue of biofuel mandates to ensure that crops are prioritised for food consumption and not necessarily for use in fuels,” a British government official told Reuters.
It’s not clear whether there’s broad-based support to temporarily waive biofuel mandates across the G7 members which include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the world’s largest biofuel producer, the United States. Surging oil and gas prices have also increased the demand for energy sourced from crops.
“The issue of biofuel mandates is at a preliminary stage of discussion at the working level,” said a spokesman for Canada’s agriculture ministry.
The group begin a three-day meeting in Bavaria, Germany, on Sunday and food security is expected to be on the agenda, after the presidency launched a Global Alliance for Food Security in May to tackle hunger.
(Reporting by Sarah McFarlane; Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh; editing by David Evans)
