Rapeseed summit hits big issues

Any quick journey outside Prague will inevitably involve an encounter with bright yellow fields filled with rapeseed. But besides the beautiful colors and an accompanying unusual smell, this cash crop increasingly finds itself at the intersection of two major world trends: the push toward bio-fuels and questions about rising food prices.

Both subjects are key talking points as 700 industry leaders attend an international conference June 5-9 at the Prague Congress Center, the first such meeting in four years.

It is the small black seeds, not the flowers, which make rapeseed so valuable, said Petr Baranyk, a professor at the Czech University of Life Sciences, and among the key organizers of the International Rapeseed Congress. These are crushed to extract oil, and the remaining solid material compacted into seed-cakes as feed for livestock.

Rapeseed is one of the Czech Republic's top crops in terms of hectares devoted to cultivation and tons harvested per year. In 2010, 368,800 hectares were sowed and just over 1 million tons harvested, according to the Agriculture Ministry; only wheat and barley were greater.

These figures place the Czech Republic 10th in the world and fifth in Europe as a rapeseed producer, a position likely to pay dividends in the future as rapeseed is Europe's main source of biodiesel.

For his part, Baranyk acknowledges the continued debate over how much biofuels actually benefit the environment is a complicated one.

"It's quite a simple question with a very difficult answer," he said.

Numerous studies point to the amount of processing required to produce biodiesel actually creating more greenhouse gases than burning standard fossil fuels, while others point to reduced carbon emissions. And as demand for biodiesel rises with laws now requiring regular gas pump diesel fuel to include at least 6 percent biodiesel, others argue that dedicating more and more agricultural land to producing biofuels is a threat to food supplies.

"In Europe, there is no big problem, but in susceptible parts of the world there could be," Baranyk said.

Ryan Scott can be reached at
features@praguepost.com