Everywhere you go these days – particularly in the United States – the talk is of biofuels. People seem to have latched onto the idea that we can grow our own fuel as being the panacea for all our fossil fuel ills.

America is particularly enthusiastic because of the promise that biofuel could be used to replace imported oil.

But, have the supporters of biofuels stopped to think things through?

According to experts at the Macaulay Institute for land use research, achieving the target of 5% of biofuel content in petrol and diesel by next year (2009) would require ONE FIFTH of Britain's agricultural land to be turned over to biofuel production!

Remember that is for only 5% biofuel. Presumably 25% biofuel would need all the agricultural land in Britain.

So where would we grow our food?

• If we, or the Americans, can't grow food, will we snatch it from under the noses of those in third world countries?
• Alternatively will we continue to grow food? If so, will we look to third world countries to grow our fuel, by stopping their food production, or destroying their rain forests to replace them with oil producing palms?

Either way it becomes a rich v. poor country issue, with only one common outcome.

Exploitation or even starvation for poorer countries.

From that perspective, it seems that a biofuel future is not so much a vision, more of a mirage.