Your interview with Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers' Union (Report, 29 July), raised interesting points on the challenge of feeding a growing population, especially given the threat of climate change.
Kendall rightly points out that we need to be careful in taking land out of production, but one factor currently responsible for taking large amounts of land out of food production was not mentioned. Biofuels, grown from crops such as wheat, are taking food that could be used to feed people. In Europe we burn enough food in our cars as biofuels to feed at least 100 million people. Biofuels are increasing hunger by forcing up food prices as there is less food to eat, and forcing people off their land in developing countries to make way for crops to use as biofuels. Most are just as bad for the climate as the fossil fuels they were introduced to replace.
The European parliament will shortly be debating the reform of European biofuels policy. Considering one in eight people around the world go hungry every day, we urge MEPs to end targets that incentivise turning farmland into land to feed cars rather than people, and vote to stop biofuels creating further hunger by capping the proportion of biofuels made from food.
Lucy Hurn
Biofuels campaign manager, ActionAid
• As the fossil fuel producing corporations do not intend to reduce their output, and as car sales in the growing economies increase, the development of alternative methods of producing electricity has little significance (The case for the Severn barrage, Letters, 26 July). There has to be political control of oil/coal/gas output, after which sustainable energy technologies become relevant.
Ron Houghton
London
