China will restrict production of ethanol produced from grains to reduce pressure on food prices.
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According to Agence France Presse, the State Council, China’s cabinet, has approved a long-term renewable energy development plan which restricts China’s ethanol industry to producing fuel from non-grain sources such as grasses, corn stalks and other agricultural by-products.
The Beijing Youth Daily said that “the rapid development of grain-based ethanol biofuels has resulted in commodity price pressures in non-developed nations.”
China produced 1.54m tons of ethanol in 2006, of which 850,000 tons was made from corn, using about 2% of its total corn production, the paper said. But world production of ethanol rose from 13.9m tonnes in 2000 to 40.5m tonnes last year, resulting in sharp rises in world grain prices.
