NORTH Yorkshire farmer Sir Ben Gill is heading a task force designed to boost the supply and demand for biomass.

The appointment of the former NFU president, who farms at Easingwold, was announced last Friday.

Lord Whitty, Food and Farming Minister, also unveiled a £3.5m UK-wide bio-energy infrastructure scheme offering grants to help harvest, store, process and supply biomass for energy production.

Sir Ben was delighted to have been given the task of reviewing the biomass sector. "Its potential is clear," he said, "It can make a huge contribution to important agendas for renewable energy, a critical issue within the climate change issue.

"But biomass struggles to make progress. With the team, I intend to define why and then look at what needs to be done. This study is about finding solutions."

Biomass can be used to produce heat and electricity by using crops such as willow, miscanthus (a tall, woody grass) and woodfuel from forests.

It is an important part of the Government's plans to increase renewable energy sources and cut greenhouse gases.

Since 2002 the Government has given £66m in capital grants for biomass projects, and its Renewables Obligation requires electricity suppliers to obtain 15pc of their electricity from renewable sources, including biomass, by 2015.

Sir Ben has John Roberts, chief executive of United Utilities, and Nick Hartley of OXERA Consulting, with him on the task force's one-year study.

Lord Whitty said biomass energy had the potential to be of huge benefit in combating climate change, boosting farm diversification and creating more rural jobs.

"We want to make it easier for producers to get their biomass out of the fields and forests and on to the market, to make it a viable alternative energy source," he said. "Ben Gill and his team will help us to address these issues and maximise the contribution of biomass to our energy goals."

Defra has paid farmers £1m since 2001 under the Energy Crops Scheme, which gives grants of up to £1,600/ha to support biomass crops production.

* The Government also published its response to a Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution report on biomass.

It agreed with the RCEP that biomass had the potential to make a significant contribution to the reduction of carbon dioxide levels; the potential to help significantly towards meeting renewables targets in the electricity supply, and to make an important contribution in the generation of renewable heat and combined heat and power.

Cambridge University has been commissioned to provide data on the economics of energy crops by April 2005.