Germany's government and its oil industry association on Tuesday disagreed about whether the country can reach its 2011 biofuel use quotas as sales of a new gasoline blend with a higher biofuel con

Drought will sharply cut the rapeseed harvest in Germany, which produces about a quarter of the European Union's crop, and is likely to force biodiesel producers to cut output.

About 75 percent of Germany's rapeseed is used by its biodiesel industry, the largest in the EU.

"The biodiesel producers must seek to find alternative supplies or may face the prospect of cutting their production," s

German drivers are reluctant to buy a new gasoline blend with a higher biofuel content, the country's oil industry association said on Friday.

Germany this year raised the maximum permitted level of bioethanol blended in gasoline to 10 percent from 5 percent as part of Germany's programme to protect the environment by cutting CO2 emissions.

But sales since the introduction three months ago h

Germany will ban cultivation and sale of genetically modified (GMO) maize despite European Union rulings that the biotech grain is safe, its government said on Tuesday.

The ban affects US biotech company Monsanto's MON 810 maize which may no longer be sown for this summer's harvest, German Agriculture and Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner told a news conference.

The first biofuels produced using new generations of biomass raw materials could be available in commercial volumes from 2010 at the earliest, German junior Environment Michael Mueller said on Monday.

But the exact time scale was still unclear, Mueller said at the European Biomass conference in Hamburg.

Germany's lower house of parliament on Thursday gave final approval to government proposals to cut the target amount of biofuels to be blended into fossil fuels this year.

The lower house approved a plan to cut the 2009 blending target to 5.25 percent biofuel content in fossil fuel in 2009 from the 6.25 percent originally intended.