Dar Es Salaam — EUROPEAN Union's energy policy which targets to source 10 percent of it from renewable sources by 2020, is both a threat to food security and not an appropriate response to climate change.

ActionAid International Tanzania Country Director, Aida Kiangi and Agriculture and Food Security Advisor, Elias Mtinda said in Dar es Salaam today that European Commission's energy policy has lured Western corporations into rural areas of the developing world including Tanzania.

Describing a recent EC Head of Delegation in Dar es Salaam which faulted an ActionAid report which criticized Brussels energy policy as fuelling hunger and land grabbing in poor countries by biofuel corporations, Ms Kiangi said facts and figures stand out clearly.

"EU companies are acquiring land in developing countries at an alarming rate in anticipation of dramatically increased EU biofuel consumption by 2020 and the generous subsidies available to the biofuel industry," Kiangi argued.

Mr Mtinda said during research into the country's biofuel sector which led to publication of a report titled, 'Meals per Gallon,' ActionAid observed that European companies on the ground were acquiring prime arable land suitable for food production.

"This is contrary to the national biofuels guidelines which clearly state that cultivation of biofuel crops should be done on marginal land," Mr Mtinda argued.

The two ActionAid officials also dismissed the EC delegation's argument that Europe has plenty of abandoned land such that its biofuel companies have enough backyard to produce the oil as unrealistic because European companies are escaping hiked production costs at home.

They also dismissed arguments that one of the staple food crops which experienced price hike in 2008 is rice which is not used as a biofuel raw material use of maize as a raw material had a direct effect on other food crops including rice.

"Contrary to the Commission's claims, independent sources such as the World Bank and International Food Policy Research Institute suggest that biofuels were responsible for at least 30 percent of the 2007/8 food price spike," Kiangi noted.

Last week, the EC Delegation in Dar es Salaam issued a statement dismissing ActionAid's report as substantially flawed. Last year, the EU adopted a Renewable Energy Directive which among other things sets a binding target for the share of renewable energy in transport by 2020.

"The directive sets a binding target of 10 percent for renewable energy, not bio-fuels. This means that member states can achieve this target by using different forms of renewable energy, including wind and solar energy and others," the EC said in its statement.