Sick sugar units to make ethanol from sweet sorghum

The Andhra Pradesh government plans to revive sick sugar units by encouraging managements to use sweet sorghum for the production of ethanol.

Speaking at a seminar on 'Utilisation of Sweet Sorghum for Ethanol Production' organised by the National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP) at the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture on Saturday, N Raghuveera Reddy, minister for agriculture, said: "Sweet sorghum would emerge as an alternative to water-intensive crops like paddy and sugarcane. Sugar industries can process sweet sorghum by making minor modifications to their existing processing plants."

Reddy said that subsidy would be given for farmers for purchase of rain-guns to be used in the cultivation of sweet sorghum.

"Use of rain-guns would conserve water in the same way as it is conserved in drip and sprinkler irrigation systems and that is why the state government is extending subsidy for the installation of rain-guns," he said.

S L Mehta, national director of National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP) said that 50 litres of ethanol could be produced per tonne of sweet sorghum.

"As per the pilot production by Karnataka-based Renuka Sugars, the cost of production was around Rs 13.45 per litre as against Rs 15 per litre for production of ethanol from molasses," he said.

According to Mehta, farmers cultivating sweet sorghum should go in for contract farming and enter into buy-back arrangements with the sugar industry for obtaining maximum benefit from cultivating the crop.

"The National Research Centre on Sorghum (NRCS) would ensure that there would be no shortage of the seeds and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) has also developed a hybrid, which would be released this year," he said.

The ICAR has already released two varieties and two more varieties are in the pipeline.