Soil Association condemns Scottish Power over 'biofuel illusions'
The Soil Association have hit out at Scottish Power over their recent announcement of intentions to "contract Scottish farmers to produce 250,000 tonnes of energy crops to be burned at Scotland’s two coal fired power stations". Their main concern is that the moves would result in over 12 percent of Scotland's total agricultural land being used for something other than food production, and this would likely have huge repercussions on a country which already produces too few food crops.
The Soil association believes that biomass fuel is a very inefficient way of producing electricity and we should be concentrating on increasing food production using organic farming techniques. Hugh Raven, the charity's Scottish director said "diverting farmland from food to inefficient energy crops in the name of climate change abatement is a deceit of historic proportions."
