Hamburg, April 10 - Germany's flour mills association on Thursday welcomed a decision by the government to abandon plans to increase biofuels blending.
Germany last week abandoned plans to raise bioethanol blending in fossil gasoline from 2009 because the blended fuels could damage older cars' engines.
"There is no doubt that increasing biofuels use is increasing inflationary pressures," said association chief executive Manfred Weizbauer. "We have always maintained that the priority should be food, animal feed and what is left over should be for the fuel tank."
"Now there are serious doubts about technical usage we think that it is time to change course and stop expanding the use of food as fuel."
Bioethanol in Germany is largely produced from wheat or rye.
"The three major bioethanol plants we have in Germany consume about 3 million tonnes of grain annually," he said "This is about 5 percent of Germany's grain crop and leads to a reduction supplies available for food or animal feed."
"More bioethanol plants are also planned which will take more supplies away."
Germany also has extensive industries producing biodiesel from rapeseed and biogas from corn.
"In these sectors land which could have been used for grain and other foods has been removed from food production," he said.
The association wants more research into second generation biofuels based on biomass-to-liquid conversion which uses vegetable waste and non-food materials such as straw and wood as feedstock.