Bio fuel production is hot and booming. The industry and its effect on feed and food are constantly in the news and it is hard to keep up with the number of new bio ethanol plants that are being built in primarily the USA and Europe.

EuropaBio, the biotechnology industry has produced a number of factsheets about biofuels.

Biodiesel is produced from vegetable oils and animal fats. The most popular oils used for biodiesel include soybean oil and restaurant grease.

Ethanol is produced from sugar and starch crops including corn, barley, and wheat.

 World ethanol production is predicted to reach 50 billion litres in 2006 compared to the 44.9 billion litres produced in 2005.

Demand for biodiesel is strong, and the overall US market for diesel fuel is huge. But there simply aren't enough oil crops and animal fats available to supplant much of it.

More and more companies active in the food and feed business are starting to express their concerns about the rising prices of raw materials for feed and food, due to the use of these ingredients for biofuel production.

Besides producing just more crops on more land, technology will play an even more important role in future feed production.

Distillers Grain is an important co-product of dry mill ethanol production.

Soybean cake is a co-product from the biodiesel industry. It is created when soybeans are cold pressed to extract the oil.