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Aug 10 2007

Government Supports Sweet Sorghum for BioEthanol

Posted by: Leo in Plant & Crops 573 Views

President Arroyo has given her blessing and full support for the commercialization of the planting of sweet sorghum as a viable and sustainable source of bioethanol.

The chief executive also instructed Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap to assist prospective investors in identifying appropriate areas in the country where they could locate and engage in the commercial planting of sweet sorghum and establish ethanol distilleries.

“In fact, President Arroyo has accepted an invitation to visit the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in Batac, Ilocos Norte, where the Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) has been conducting sweet sorghum production field trials,” said former Agriculture Secretary William Dar, now director general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in Andhra Pradesh, India.

ICRISAT is one of 15 international centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). ICRISAT conducts innovative agricultural research and capacity building with a wide array of partners in 48 countries to help alleviate hunger and poverty and protect the environment of the dry tropics.

“She also accepted an invitation to visit India and ICRISAT in April this year,” added Dar, who along with ICRISAT officials and Indian investors recently met with President Arroyo and Secretary Yap in Malacañang.

Early last year, President Arroyo received from Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam several kilos of foundation seeds of sweet sorghum developed by ICRISAT. Immediately thereafter, with funding from BAR and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), MMSU went on to field-test eight varieties, of which five have been adopted locally.

Dar said field tests of sweet sorghum in MMSU have shown encouraging results.

The average yield is 110 tons per hectare for two cropping seasons in eight months (one main crop followed by one ratoon crop). The yield of sweet sorghum is higher with a much shorter cropping season (one cropping season for sugarcane is 12 months compared to four-month cropping season for sweet sorghum), and it also requires less inputs especially water compared to other bioethanol sources.

Furthermore, sweet sorghum has a total grain yield of 7.2 mt/ha from two crop harvests. The net income from sweet sorghum for two cropping seasons ranged from P65,000 to P72,000 per hectare.

The recommended capacity for any distillery of ethanol is 270 days. The combined milling and distillery operation for sugarcane takes only 150 days.

One strategy would be to use the slack period of 120 days for the milling of sweet sorghum. This will mean added income for the sugarcane farmers.

“Thus, overall, there are bright prospects in growing sweet sorghum, not only as feedstock for ethanol production, but also as food and feedgrain,” noted Dar.

He further averred: “The commercialization and massive planting of sweet sorghum augur well for our country, as President Arroyo recently signed into law the Biofuels Act, mandating the use of ethanol-blended gasoline and biodiesel.”

Dar also commended Secretary Yap of DA for initiating the first technology investment forum on sweet sorghum for ethanol on 19 January. The forum attracted stakeholders and prospective Filipino and foreign investors.”

One investor is Rusni Distilleries, which was incubated at the Agri-Science Park at ICRISAT and recently put up the world’s first sweet sorghum-fed ethanol plant in Andra Pradesh. Dar said the distillery has a capacity of 40,000 liters a day, and required an initial investment of US$8.5 million. It started operating in October 2006.

The Agri-Science Park at ICRISAT is a hub for strategic public-private partnerships to enhance the development and commercialization of ICRISAT’s innovations to ultimately benefit the poor. It was established as part of the Genome Valley initiative of the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

Five local and foreign companies have signed up with Rusni Distilleries and ICRISAT to use the multi-feedstock distillery system, including the use of sweet sorghum hybrids. The companies are eyeing Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, and the Visayas as sites of the distilleries for ethanol production using sweet sorghum.

Such development would indeed benefit tens of thousands of farmers and their families in Northern Luzon, where production trials have been successful–as they would have a viable cash crop in sweet sorghum, and also as source of food and feed.

source: www.bar.gov.ph, photo from icrisat.org