Smart Revolution. Ethanol Corn Or Sugarcane? Sweet Sorghum - William Dar, ICRISAT
Frank A. Hilario
January 16, 2008
‘Sweet sorghum is the smart crop,’ Director General William Dar of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) says over lunch on broiled chicken, sinigang na maya-maya (sour soup, fish), tea and sugarcane juice somewhere in Quezon City, Philippines yesterday, January 11. ‘A smart crop’ – I wish I had thought of that. Dar and I am with a common friend, Santiago R Obien, more popularly called simply SRO, Executive Director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), Retired; now consultant of the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR), my ‘Wizard of Rice’ (americanchronicle.com). I had pleaded with SRO to make an appointment for us, as I wanted to thank Dar personally. ‘You discovered me as a writer,’ I tell Dar, ‘and then you published me, for which I thank you. A great honor. It has been the best Christmas gift I have ever received.’ He caused the publishing last November of my book, Team ICRISAT Champions The Poor (for details, see my ‘My American Book. Embracing Science Embracing Faith,’ americanchronicle.com). Smart. My first book, I published myself; my second book, it’s international! You should be so lucky. (ICRISAT should be so lucky as to have Dar as their Team Captain.)
I was lucky SRO discovered me as a writer long before this; then he introduced me to the Team Captain. I was lucky I ‘discovered’ sweet sorghum as ‘the great climate crop’ February 2007 (see my ‘The Yankee Dawdle. On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop,’ americanchronicle.com). In another essay, I called sweet sorghum ‘a rich man’s choice of a poor man’s crop,’ americanchronicle.com).
And now Dar tells us, ‘Sweet sorghum is the smart crop. What we need to start the Smart Revolution is a smart crop.’ Now I’m thinking: If we’re as smart as we think we are.
Born January 11, The Smart Revolution advocates the enshrinement of pro-poor policies, among others. Sweet sorghum as source of ethanol is intelligent, not only because it is pro-poor. The Director General of ICRISAT enumerates 4 standards as his basis in saying sweet sorghum is a smart crop: food security, energy security, ecological sustainability, and water security. I write them down. He doesn’t explain; I have no questions. Let’s see if I’m as smart as I think I am:
(1) Food security. Corn and sugarcane are food crops. The Yankees turn X amount of corn and the Brazilians Y amount of sugarcane into ethanol and they are denying X/Y quantities to the food manufacturers, who will (gladly) raise prices, and thereby punishing their customers by having to pay the price for a public policy that their peoples did not declare. They should be ashamed of themselves!
Sweet sorghum grain is food, but the yield in grains to a hectare is only about 4% of the yield in stalks, 4 tons to 92 tons/ha (Belum Reddy et al, ‘Sweet sorghum: A water-saving bio-energy crop,’ icrisat.org). To favor food and simplify, let me grant that the food yield of sweet sorghum is 10% and the stalk yield is 90% of the total harvest. Still, the ripple effect of the 10% is minimal, if visible at all. That reminds me of how the gifted Thomas Alva Edison defines genius: 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. I don’t like it; too much work to do. So, I’ll take the 90% of sweet sorghum as my inspiration. A smart aleck, reversing Edison, I have been inspired to define genius as 90% inspiration and 10% perspiration. That should inspire others to help wage The Smart Revolution. Head first – assuming Heart – Hands later.
(2) Energy security. For a country to enjoy energy security, it will have to be self-sufficient and produce its own energy. For my country, since the Philippines has hardly any oil field, it means at least the fuel for cars and trucks must be tapped from crops, and the smart source for ethanol is sweet sorghum. What about the popular sweet crop, sugarcane? Okay, sweet sorghum is the smarter choice. It’s also sweeter, sweetheart.
(3) Sustainability. Is it ecologically sustainable? Yes. Sweet sorghum can siphon off as much of the carbon dioxide in the air as sweet corn. The Ilocanos are a hardy people; they thrive anywhere. Like the Ilocanos of Northern Luzon in my country, sweet sorghum is resilient; so, it can reclaim and enrich marginal lands like corn or sugarcane cannot. Sweet sorghum is an intelligent solution to a problem soil. A crop for the sagacious farmer, not to mention the sagacious entrepreneur.
Is this for the long-term? Yes. The growing of sweet sorghum and processing of its stalks into ethanol is sustainable. We have hybrid seeds of sweet sorghum coming from ICRISAT. We have the marginal lands waiting to be planted. We have the continuing demand for ethanol because of the continuing need to clean the air of carbon dioxide from the burning of gasoline etc. And it’s cost-effective. The cost of growing sweet sorghum is 4 times lower than that of sugarcane, P 17,820 compared to P 44,250/ha/year (Reddy et al, as cited). Here, less is more, and that’s smart.
(4) Water security. Crops need to drink water too. A favored crop in the Philippines, sugarcane doesn’t drink water – it gorges on it. For 1 crop of 12 months, sugarcane uses 36,000 cubic meters of water; for 2 crops of only 8-9 months, sweet sorghum sips only 8,000 cubic meters (Reddy et al, as cited). That’s 78% less water; in other words, sugarcane wolfs down 4.5 times more water than sweet sorghum. This is shocking news, at least to me, as my country has been cultivating sugarcane commercially since the 18th century under the Spanish regime; in the 19th century, sugarcane became a major export (Jose Maria T Zabala, fao.org). A historical lack of intelligence. So, we Filipinos have been cultivating for 200 years a crop that is a wastrel of water. This is water under the bridge we can stop if we’re smart enough.
Is the US smart enough to make a paradigm shift and make a sharp turn from corn to sweet sorghum? I doubt it. How about Brazil from sugarcane? As smart the United States, I guess.
Let’s be sharp and look at sweet sorghum as a smart crop by making a paradigm shift, this time in terms of an acronym that defines intelligence or brilliance: SMART.
Soil-friendly. Sweet sorghum is ‘tolerant to drought, soil salinity, acidity, and toxicity’ (2004, bar.gov.ph). ‘It is high-yielding, and tolerant to drought, water-logging and soil salinity’ (new-agri.co.uk). That means, if your soil is dry, this crop will grow well; if your soil is wet, this crop will grow as well, if not better; it will also grow well in alkaline (‘sweet’) and acidic (‘sour’) soils. In other words, sweet sorghum is adaptable to many different sites. Flexible is smart.
Multiple uses. I have a list of 5 uses of sweet sorghum (see also my ‘Al Gore Of Science. Being About William Dar & ‘Science With A Human Face,’ americanchronicle.com): food (grains, syrup), feed (grains), fuel (firewood, ethanol), forage (leaves, stalks), fertilizer (the whole plant) (see also Belum Reddy, ‘Sweet Sorghum,’ icrisat.org). Bedding, roofing, fencing and paper are added to the list of uses by the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) (AK Rajvanshi & N Nimbkar, nariphaltan.virtualave.net). While we are having lunch yesterday, I notice that the restaurant has ‘sugarcane juice’ and so we order a glass. It’s good. Dar comes up with an insight: That’s a good idea. Sweet sorghum juice is a good product. That’s what I call a smart customer.
Appropriate for the poor. Sweet sorghum is a pro-poor crop. ICRISAT has a website dedicated to ‘BioPower: Empowering the Poor through Bio-Energy’ (icrisat.org/biopower/). Captain of Team ICRISAT William Dar says, ‘As a dryland crop, sweet sorghum requires far less water than costly irrigated sugarcane, making it more accessible to the poor.’ Because it is soil-friendly, because it needs much less fertilizer, because of its multiple uses; and because a farmer can earn between $1,250 and $1,625 (at P40 to $1) (mixph.com), not peanuts in my country, now I can tell you: Sweet sorghum is a smart man’s choice of a poor man’s crop.
Research-supported. Research on the crop at the NARI has been ongoing for the last 27 years (AK Rajvanshi & N Nimbkar, cited). The FAO and the UNDP of the United Nations have been studying in China the production of renewable energy, including from sweet sorghum, since 1988 (fao.org). ICRISAT has been doing research on this relatively unknown crop for the last 12 years (Belum Reddy et al, 2007, ars.usda.gov). Since, 1996, the Chinese Shenzhen International Technology Promotion Center for Sustainable Development has been conducting research on sweet sorghum, resulting in 5 demonstration projects in China with a total production capacity of more than 10,000 tons/year (unido.itpc.org). Their research has been smart.
Technologically mature. In a moment of awe, David A Fahrenthold reports that switchgrass has been called ‘a Crop of Hope’ (washingtonpost.com). Yet, he notes that ‘scientists haven’t perfected the process that turns switchgrass into ethanol. So for today, the Crop That Could Change Virginia is just hay with better publicity.’ The first commercial factory may not arrive for at least 5 years, David says. Not for my sweet sorghum, David. Bill Bradshaw reports that the pioneering project between Rusni Distilleries and ICRISAT to extract biofuel from sweet sorghum in commercial quantity bore fruit in June 2007 with the first batch of the ethanol flowing out of the distillery at the Mohammed Shapur village in Andhra Pradesh, India, ‘turning the dream into sweet reality’ (biofuelreview.com). Dar says, ‘The project successfully blends ICRISAT’s scientific capability in developing sweet sorghum varieties with higher juice availability with the entrepreneurial capability of Rusni Distilleries. This we have linked with the dryland farmers through the grass-roots networking strength of our other partner Aakrithi Agricultural Associates of India (AAI).’ This is a multi-feedstock distillery, able to extract juice from not only sorghum but also sugarcane and corn. AR Palaniswamy, Managing Director of Rusni Distilleries says, ‘This ensures that we run the plant and provide employment to farmers throughout the year.’ A wise entrepreneur cultivates farmers.
And the Philippines may be next to India in terms of squeezing the juice from sweet sorghum. In February 2006, Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam, accompanied by Dar, presented to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at Malacañang foundation seeds of sweet sorghum bred by ICRISAT. With funding from the DA-BAR under Director Nicomedes P Eleazar and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) under Vice President Heraldo Layaoen started field-testing at Batac, Ilocos Norte (NPT, July 2007, northphiltimes.blogspot.com/). One of the findings is that in the Philippines, sweet sorghum can yield 85-90 tons/ha in 8 months, much better than yields in India; I thought this indicated better soils in these islands (frankahilario.com). GMA has since been supportive of sweet sorghum for ethanol production (see my ‘The Yankee Dawdle,’ americanchronicle.com). Smart President of her country.
I know for a fact that while it is based in India, Team ICRISAT has been pursuing a Rusni-type sweet sorghum initiative in my country starting last year (see my ‘The Grammar On Global Warming: Your Language Repaired While You Wait,’ americanchronicle.com). This year, next month, February 27-29, CHED, DA-BAR, and the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) are sponsoring the ‘First National Sweet Sorghum Review and Planning Conference’ to be held in Batac. 100 participants are expected to attend: researchers, extensionists, policy makers, academicians, entrepreneurs, NGOs, farmers, concerned citizens. Overall, I expect an enlightened conference – and more sweet sorghum entrepreneurs.
I’m reading the advance handout from SRO, which says the theme of the Batac Conference is ‘Synergizing linkages for a commercially viable bioethanol industry in the Philippines.’ From many efforts to one enterprise. The main objective of the conference is to develop a national framework for research, development and extension (R, D & E)for sweet sorghum in the context of the biofuel needs of the Philippines. The scientists for sweet sorghum must think globally and act locally.
The centerpiece of the conference is the setting up of what is to be called the National Sweet Sorghum Research and Development Center. R&D: I’m not happy to note that the name does not exactly fit the framework; there’s an important letter missing. The image I show (above) is to remind people to please not forget the art & science of Extension; E should always follow R&D. Not only that. Consider that E today must include KM (knowledge management) – you have to sell theory so that practice will follow. Science is swell if you can sell well.
Related to Extension, there’s another E that I think should be integrated into any framework for a national sweet sorghum institute: Entrepreneurship. In cultivating sweet sorghum, entrepreneurship should also be cultivated among Filipinos, in either of two ways: (1) Encouraging the big businessmen to put up their ethanol distillery plants and encouraging the surrounding farms to supply the sweet sorghum stalks on a continuing basis. (2) Encouraging small farmers out of reach of a distillery to collaborate and build village-scale sweet sorghum-based industries such as for syrup, jaggery, wine, feed, food, fuel, fertilizer. Small is smart.
Strategic issues to be addressed in the conference involve, in my own words: (a) production, (b) processing, (c) people, (d) public-private partnerships. I note that the title of the conference has the phrase review and planning. Good thinking. I also think that based on the range of issues listed to be discussed, the review is designed to be holistic, starting with the seeds and ending with what happens to the harvest, what are the benefits and who gets what. If you’re broad-minded, you don’t ever forget the distribution of benefits.
All in all, I am convinced sweet sorghum is The Smart Crop, the great climate change crop. So, I say the smart set are the Filipinos and other Asians, the Europeans, Africans, North and South Americans and others who are paying attention to climate change following the Kyoto Protocol (see also my ‘Atlas Blogged! Climate Change In UK, Then In UP, Then In US?’ americanchronicle.com). To those who have been intelligently accepting the Kyoto Protocol, I say:
Sweet sorghum is smart money.
Sorghum makes a radical tease: Smart. Now, for the rest of us, which one are you: Smart cookie, smart mouth, or smart ass? Those who have been foolishly rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, the peoples of the United States and Australia, to them I ask:
While you’re so rich, why aren’t you so smart?