Farmers who attended a Teagasc biofuels open day in Carlow yesterday were told that every day oil prices continued to rise brought the prospect of viable fuel production in Ireland closer.
Bernard Rice, an expert on alternative fuels, urged them to examine the options of using sewage sludge from local towns on their fuel-producing crops to bring that day closer.
"While the production of biomass crops such as willow or miscanthus [elephant grass] have high establishment costs, those can be reduced if farmers imposed a gate charge for the disposal of organic wastes from urban centres which can no longer go into landfill sites.
"As each of our towns and villages get sewage-treatment plants this is an option which will make the growing of these non-food biomass crops more profitable."
Over 1,500 farmers turned up from around the country to examine the research which has been going on for 20 years at the Oak Park farm on producing oil from rapeseed, and fuels from cereal crops, elephant grass, willow and hemp.
The head of Teagasc crops research centre, Prof Jimmy Burke, said a steady increase in biomass and biofuel use for energy purposes would help to improve national fuel security.
"If profitability problems can be overcome, growing energy crops could benefit farmers and the industry."
Tom Parlon, Minister of State for Finance, who attended the event, said his PD party was putting forward proposals to Government seeking measures to help farmers who wished to grow fuel crops.
There was a warning, however, from Mr Rice that farmers would need to plan for losing a year's crop if they wanted to grow hemp, commonly known as cannabis, because there were very strict regulations around its growth.