India starts producing ethanol from sweet sorghum

The country's first plant for commercial production of ethanol from sweet sorghum, a rainfed multi-benefit crop, has gone on stream at Mohammed Shapur village in Andhra Pradesh.

Sweet sorghum is like any ordinary sorghum but with a high content of sweet juice in its stalks. While the juice is used to produce ethanol biofuel, the grains can be used as food or feed.

The pioneering project for gainfully utilising a poor farmers' crop for ethanol production has been implemented jointly by the Hyderabad-based International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Rusni Distilleries.

The plant has developed backward linkage with sweet sorghum growing farmers, with the help of a grass-roots organisation called Aakrithi Agricultural Associates of India (AAI).

According to ICRISAT Director General William Dar, this major public-private partnership project blends the ICRISAT's scientific capability to develop juice-rich sweet sorghum varieties with the entrepreneurial skills of the Rusni Distilleries.

Though the Rusni's plant is meant primarily to manufacture ethanol from the sweet sorghum stalks, it has been designed to be able to use other feedstocks as well. Even sugarcane or grains like sorghum and maize can be used at this plant in case the farmers have surplus of these crops, says Rusni Distilleries managing director AR Palaniswamy.

With the monsoon having already reached peninsular India, the sowing of kharif crops has already begun in the rainfed tracts of Andhra Pradesh.

About 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) are proposed to be brought under the improved varieties of sweet sorghum during this season. The AAI has identified the cluster of villages and the farmers for growing sweet sorghum.

Though sweet sorghum, like ordinary sorghum, is normally grown as kharif (rainy season) crop, the ICRISAT's plant breeders have overcome the problem of seasonal supply by developing sweet sorghum hybrids that can be planted at any time of the year. This would ensure year-round supply of raw material to Rusni Distilleries.

Sweet sorghum enjoys several advantages over sugarcane or maize as feedstock for biofuel production. It requires only one half of the water needed to grow maize and just one-eighth of that needed for a sugarcane crop. As such, the production cost of sweet sorghum turns out to be merely one-fifth of that of sugarcane, according to the ICRISAT sources.

The ICRISAT is leading a consortium of partners for developing sweet sorghum as a source of biofuel under the National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP), a World Bank supported programme being implemented by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Under this initiative, the ICRISAT and other institutions would strengthen molecular research and breeding of sweet sorghum, besides promoting public-private partnership.

The biofuel production from sweet sorghum is unlikely to attract criticism that other grain-based biofuel production programmes normally encounter.

This is because it does not endanger food security by taking the land away from food production. Only stalk juice is used for ethanol production while the grains remain available for consumption.

While the overall biofuel production is growing globally, several countries are taking policy decisions to prevent diversion of land from food crops to biofuel plantations.

Sweet sorghum is viewed as a preferred alternative as it can provide both food and biofuel from the same land. The cultivation of this poor farmers' crop is being encouraged in countries like China and the Philippines.

This apart, sweet sorghum has been certified by an international agency to be a carbon neutral crop. The amount of carbon dioxide that sweet sorghum fixes is equal to the amount it emits during the entire proccess of crop growth, its conversion to ethanol and final combustion of ethanol.

This makes it an environment and ecology friendly source of biofuel production.