Animal Feed: Cereals

(asked on 16th June 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how UK farmers will replace the lost market for feed quality cereals when the UK imports bioethanol from the United States of America.


Answered by
Baroness Hayman of Ullock Portrait
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 24th June 2025

The landmark economic deal with the United States announced on 8 May protects jobs in the automotive, steel, aluminium, pharmaceutical and aerospace sectors - sectors that employ over 320,000 people across the UK. For the first time ever, this deal will also open up exclusive access for UK beef farmers to the US market.

The demand for UK-produced crops is subject to global market prices and supply. Crop varieties grown in the UK can be of a specification for food, feed and bioenergy standards, and this in-built flexibility helps farmers to ensure an end-use market for their product. For farmers, the opportunity to sell into bioenergy production offers a secondary market for their surplus or lower quality crops and associated agricultural residues. In 2023, 133,000 hectares of agricultural land in the UK were used to grow crops for bioenergy. This area represents 2.2% of the arable land in the UK.

The Government is working closely with the Ethanol industry to find a way forward. The Business and Transport Secretaries met with representatives from the bioethanol industry last week to discuss their concerns.

Reticulating Splines