Saving food for clean energy

The government is set to increase the use non-food products to make bio-fuel to strike a balance between food security and the growing demand for energy. To ensure that, it has changed its bio-fuel policy, banning any new plants from using corn.

It will subsidize demonstration projects producing ethanol from non-staple products such as cellulose, sweet sorghum and cassava, or making bio-diesel from forest products. It will make it easier for such projects to get bank loans, too.

Projects that are up to approved industrial standards will be rewarded with 20 to 40 percent of their total investment, the deputy director of the Ministry of Finance's Department of Economic Development, Zeng Xiao'an, has said. Also, bio-fuel producers who lose money when crude oil prices fall will get flexible subsidies.