Farming Fuel - Back to the Future

Until recent times farming was more than the provision of foodstuffs – it included the farming of fuel and other resources like wood and minerals. Each village had several fields. Each field would have the same crop and parishioners were allocated strips of these fields to farm. Likewise the woodland was farmed too, this time for fuel, grazing, or timber. This common way of sharing the land disappeared long ago and with it the idea that farming is more than for the provision of food.

Now we have bio-fuels – again farming the land for fuel. The ETA is in favour of using bio-fuels but only in the context of genuine environmental sustainability. We opposed and continue to oppose the European bio-fuel targets and the government subsidies that go along with it.

If governments were genuinely interested in reducing climate change then they would introduce a carbon tax.