Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

Goodbye soil.
Maize is the greatest threat to soils in the UK.
Yet it is expanding rapidly, largely for biogas production in anaerobic digestion plants.
Prime land is being trashed in response to a perverse incentive created by the government.

https://twitter.com/willbick/status/1339200089550712832

Biogas was sold to us on the basis that it would be produced from slurry, sewage and food waste. But, as some of us warned, you can make more money by growing crops specifically for producing it.
Far from heeding the warnings, the govt actually encouraged this.

And @NFUtweets called for a massive expansion in crops for biogas (generally on Grade 1 arable land), taking this land out of food production.
At they same time, it opposes rewilding even of the least productive land, because it would, er, take this land out of food production!

Another classic example of NFU hypocrisy.
While rewilding restores soils and ecosystems, growing maize for biogas trashes them, faster than almost any other form of production.
If a practice is highly damaging, you can bet good money that the NFU supports it.

Growing maize for biogas production is almost the definition of decadence.
It reduces the availability of food and destroys the future productive capacity of the land.
It has to stop.