'This week, the European commission will fan the flames with a proposal that will tear through the biofuels industry, effectively ensuring the decline of a European sector estimated to be worth €17bn (£14bn) a year. Industry associations say millions of pounds of investment could be wasted in the UK alone.

The proposal was leaked in September and came as a huge shock to the industry and to campaigners. It proposed to limit the use of crop-based biofuels to meet the EU's 10% target for renewable transport energy by 2020. The leaked document suggested that only half of that target be met with biofuels from food crops – such as wheat, sugar cane and oilseed rape. Clare Coffey, policy advisor at ActionAid, which has been campaigning against biofuels for the past two years, said: "Nobody was expecting the 5% cap, that was totally new."'

Read more: New EU biofuels law could be last straw for farmers hit by wet weather and rising costs