(Bioenergy Insight) The Scottish Tenant Farmers Association (SFTA) is repeating its warning to the UK government that the “headlong drive to produce renewable energy from by-products of the distilling industry through anaerobic digesters and biomass plants will cause severe damage to the beef industry”.
The supply of distillery by-products, draff, pot ale syrup and dark grains, which beef and many sheep systems in marginal areas have relied on for decades as a reliable source of GM free protein, is now at risk.
The proliferation of anaerobic digestion (AD) and biomass plants over the last few years severely limits the supply of this feed source as distilleries divert their by-products towards renewable energy, encouraged by significant financial incentives from government.
Draff has doubled in price and is in short supply and dark grains, which are a staple ingredient of most compound feeds, now have to be hauled from the central belt and there are doubts as to how long this source will be available.
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“The growth of AD plants has created its own problems with a vast quantity of digestate (waste from the AD process) now having to be spread on grassland. As yet, farmers have no real idea of the long-term implications of spreading this waste and how it will effect the chemical composition of soils, trace elements and available nutrients.” READ MORE