London, August 15:

International rules to regulate the biofuel market should be devised and implemented, the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a comment piece published on the Financial Times’s website today.

FAO director-general Jacques Diouf called upon the European Union (EU) and United States (US) to lower trade barriers against importing ethanol, establish environmental standards for bioenergy, and provide microcredit to farmers in developing countries so they can develop their biofuel industries.

“Such measures would allow developing countries - which generally have ecosystems and climates more suited to biomass production than industrialised nations and often have ample reserves of land and labour - to use their comparative advantage,” wrote Diouf.