After weeks of rain, you may have noticed more soil washing off fields and muddying rivers. This is bad news for farmers and bad news for rivers.  

Frustratingly, one of the culprits of this soil erosion continues to benefit from UK Government support. ‘Biogas’ sees maize grown and harvested to be broken down by anaerobic digestion to produce energy.  

While proponents of biogas claim this is a more sustainable fuel, it is far from a green energy option. The production of maize: 

•  uses fertilisers
• leaves bare soil for extended periods 
• causes compaction  

All these factors contribute to significant pollution and increased soil erosion, leading to more soil washing off into rivers.  

Biogas is not a sustainable option for land use  

Land for biogas has significantly grown, with the area of maize for biogas almost doubling from 142,00 ha in 2024 to 241,000 ha in 2025. This is land not being used for food, and often with little value for nature.  

Both land use change and the devastating impacts to soil health have major implications for our future ability to produce food - or even maize itself, which the biogas relies on.  

Droughts and extreme flooding have already hit the UK arable sector. Continuing to use land to produce maize for biogas therefore poses significant risks to our national food security. 

Unfortunately, the Government continue to support biogas. In 2025 they announced a two year extension of the green gas support scheme, which has been a key driver in maintaining biogas project momentum.   

The Government needs to urgently reconsider its position  

The rapid expansion in maize growing for biogas production is holding back progress on meeting the Government’s legally-binding Environment Act target to reduce agricultural water pollution (meaning Nitrogen, Phosporous and Sediment) by 40% by 2038 – a target the Office for Environment Protection has assessed as already ‘largely off track’. 

This Government support flies in the face of expert recognition that maize is high risk crop for soil erosion.  

The Environment Agency has urged farmers in high erosion areas to consider growing crops other than maize due to the increased likelihood of climate change, extreme weather events and increased likelihood of pollution incidents from soil erosion and run-off. Yet biogas continues to be pushed as a sustainable energy source.  

As we face increasing amounts of rainfall, the biogas risk to soils becomes more acute. Maize production reduces our resilience to flooding and increases soil erosion and degradation, polluting our rivers and seas, and reducing our future ability to produce food on this land.  

Lands are being converted from water-holding grasslands to high run-off maize fields. This seems shortsighted when approximately six million properties are at flood risk in England already, and this is predicted to increase to eight million by the end of the century, or one in four.  

Maize growth for biogas is a growing flooding and waterway pollution threat the Government needs to urgently reconsider its position.