Biofuel a suitable replacement industry for sugar

IN school, we learned of the importance of the family as the core of society. We also were taught that family farms producing staple foods were essential to maintain a viable economy, especially in a time of international uncertainty.

Visionaries such as Sean Lemass understood this well and the establishment of the Irish sugar industry was but one of the many initiatives on which this State was founded. However, it appears that the present generation has lost the plot.

The EU agricultural food policy became a victim of its own success through overproduction.

The hundreds of millions of euro proposed as compensation for the loss of the sugar industry could be better utilised to provide capital for a new and vital agriculture-based industry.

The obvious replacement industry is biofuel production from various suitable feedstock crops. These would be oleaginous crops such as oil seed rape, and starch crops from which ethanol could be made. Not only would this throw a lifeline to an already beleaguered farm sector but maintain a significant level of employment for those whose jobs are about to go and underpin part of our fuel needs.

Increasing oil demand is outstripping the rate of discovery by about 4:1. Even George W Bush is aware that oil production is at or near its peak, and that exponential price rises are inevitable.

Canada, for example, has reserves of oil comparable to, if not greater than, Iraq. To name but one province, Ontario is on target to produce 10% of its liquid fuel needs from biofuels by 2010, rising to 20% by 2020.

Ireland has no known oil reserves and is therefore dependent on imports for liquid fuels, yet the best the Government can do is refer to a small biofuel production experiment amounting to just two gallons per vehicle this year.

Like the sugar industry, the early years could prove challenging and may require an interim structure similar to that of Irish Sugar, in which the exchequer holds the shares.

Instead of providing subsidies, however, all the Government has to do is to forgo a sufficient element of tax on the fuel produced. As and when mineral oil prices rise, this concession could be unwound.

Some significant benefits would include a strategic alternative for at least some of our fuel needs; the underpinning of agriculture with significant social advantage; the provision of alternative employment for displaced sugar workers and an improved national balance of payments.

Allan J Navratil

Ballinacurra House

Midleton

Co Cork