A wholesale switch to using biomass to generate energy rather than fossil fuels will create some 30,000 jobs in the Netherlands, according to a Wageningen University professor.

Johan Sanders, who is standing down as professor of industrial crops and products, says the switch would generate 30,000 new jobs in agriculture alone.

The extra employees would be needed to grow maize, grass, sugar beet and other crops used as fuel.

Further processing of biomass would create another 15,000 jobs in the chemicals industry, Sanders is quoted as saying by news agency ANP.

The shift could be made without chemical industry products becoming more expensive and without government subsidies, he said.