Sorghum pushed as raw material for ethanol

Dr. William D. Dar, the Filipino director general of the International Center for Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India, is pushing sweet sorghum as a sustainable raw material for ethanol production.

Since the biofuel initiative in the country today is very important for our survival,"we should be looking for the variety of major sources of biofuels that we can develop and sustain," Dar said in an e-mail to this writer.

"We need to promote and commercialize sweet sorghum for ethanol production," he said.

He added the knowledge and science that have been put into sweet sorghum as ethanol source can be used by the Philippines as the solid basis for full scale commercialization following the big brother-small brother strategy.

This is a good business enterprise that must involve the small holders, he said.

"This is the model we are working on at ICRISAT and we have the first distillery in the world on ethanol production using sweet sorghum invested in by the private sector. We have been incubating this idea and this distillery will operate this June," Dar revealed.

No less than 6,000 hectares planted to sweet sorghum by small holders supply the raw materials for the distillery.

On the other hand, Dar warned that the knowledge base on jathropa as ethanol source must be built up first and its science and technology support must be put up prior to its massive commercialization. He said that in India where the use of jathropa as ethanol source is considered advanced, the Indian Council for Agricultural Research has approved only one variety of this crop for release and commercialization.

He said, however, "we should now enhance the approval of the Biofuels Act to consider a variety of sources of biofuel, not only jathropa."

At the same time, a blueprint for biofuels development and commercialization must be put up with private sector and public institutions working together, Dar stressed. "This road map must always include science and technology support, capacity building, infrastructure development, mobilization of investments and other important matters."

This blueprint must be knowledge-based and equally involve big business and the small farmers.

"Let‘s do it well and systematically this time," he added. — Sosimo Ma. Pablico