{"id":20884,"date":"2014-04-16T00:57:43","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T19:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/?p=20884"},"modified":"2014-04-16T00:57:43","modified_gmt":"2014-04-15T19:27:43","slug":"sweet-sorghum-an-attractive-alternate-feedstock-for-bio-ethanol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/society\/sweet-sorghum-an-attractive-alternate-feedstock-for-bio-ethanol","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Sorghum: an attractive alternate feedstock for Bio-Ethanol"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">The cultivation of Sweet Sorghum in an energy starved country like India, has great potential of improving both income and lifestyle of farming communities. Sweet Sorghum is a drought tolerant crop and has the potential to be used as food, feedstock and fodder. \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Globally, <b>Sugarcane<\/b> and <b>corn<\/b> are used as feedstock to produce Bio-Ethanol, which is a bio-fuel used for blending with petrol, to reduce the overall cost of fuel. In India, the feedstock requirement is met almost entirely by molasses, which is a by-product of sugarcane. Sugarcane production is strongly influenced by government defined Minimum Price Support (MSP) policy, as it is a primary feedstock for sugar processing. However, Sweet Sorghum is an <b>attractive alternate<\/b> to sugarcane on several counts and has the potential to be a more profitable alternate.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Several studies carried out indicate that India has natural potential for producing Bio-Ethanol, which is an additive to Petroleum. The use of Ethanol can significantly bring down the <b>cost of fuel<\/b> while retaining all the properties of fuel. The current National Policy on Biofuels permits blending of <b>10%<\/b> and targets a <b>20% blending<\/b> of Bio-diesel and Bio-Ethanol, by 2017.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>The Sweet Sorghum advantage<\/b><\/span><b style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Sweet Sorghum is a rainfall independent cash crop which can be harnessed to address need for <b>Fuel, Grain<\/b> and <b>multiple uses<\/b> as under:<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>Sorghum types<\/b>:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Grain<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Dual (grain &amp; fodder)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Sweet stalk ((fuel, food, feed and fodder)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Sweet sorghum \u2013 a bio ethanol feedstock<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">There is a strong case for active promotion and cultivation of <b>Sweet Sorghum<\/b> in India which could significantly increase the <b>per capita income of farmers,<\/b> while reducing the dependence on rain fed and groundwater based irrigation. Further advantage is that the stalk is used as feedstock for bio-ethanol production, while the grains are available to be sold in the market. This ensures that additional agricultural land need not be diverted for cultivation to meet industrial demand.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>Sweet Sorghum vs Sugarcane<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Sweet Sorghum requires little water and can sustain in semi-arid and arid conditions. It grows in 4 months as compared to 12-16 months for sugarcane. Which means that you can get 2 crops per year. The water requirement is just 8000 m3 per hectare while sugarcane requires 36,000 m3 per hectare. <\/span><i style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">(Source:<\/i><i style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Energy Policy,<\/i><i style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Assessing Viability of Bio-ethanol Production from Sweet Sorghum, G.Basavaraj et al.)<\/i><i style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>To take advantage of the opportunity, the following is required:<\/b><\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Setting up of ethanol distillation factory in 50 km radius of Sweet Sorghum growing areas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Promote cultivation of sweet sorghum on contract farming basis.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Establish laboratory for high yielding seed development and distribution to farmers in the target area.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Promote holistic community development in the target area.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Once the business model is successfully demonstrated, scale up the project and take it to all parts of India where the soil and climatic conditions support cultivation of Sweet Sorghum.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">The above can be achieved with active participation and support from the government, NGOs\u00a0and local farming co-operatives.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">There is significant scope for improvement in per capita cultivation, as well as, production of bio-ethanol, by improving technology processes. With optimization of productivity the net income of farmer\u2019s can rise significantly.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>Government support essential<\/b><\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">With support from the government, a holistic business model could be developed on a <b>PPP <\/b>basis. The government of India is proactively promoting private sector investment in agriculture, and development of bio-fuels, knowledge transfer and financial support to small, medium and large farmers.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Its time India looked at all possible alternate crops to maximize productivity along with improving farmer\u2019s per capita income.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The cultivation of Sweet Sorghum in an energy starved country like India, has great potential of improving both income and lifestyle of farming communities. Sweet Sorghum is a drought tolerant crop and has the potential to be used as food, feedstock and fodder. \u00a0\u00a0 Globally, Sugarcane and corn are used as feedstock to produce Bio-Ethanol, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11315,26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-india","7":"category-society"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}