DR. WILLIAM D. Dar, director-general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India led other ICRISAT principal scientists to speak in a symposium-cum-investment forum on biofuel and environment protection, Jan. 17 at the Teatro Ilocandia.
 
The former Philippine secretary of agriculture and PCARRD executive director brought with him three principal scientists from ICRISAT to discuss prospects and potential of pigeon pea for soil conservation and cash crop in the country, sweet sorghum for ethanol, and enhancing livelihood and income opportunities through community watershed management.

ICRISAT has been promoting the production and use of biofuel from sweet sorghum in response to the soaring prices of fossil-fuel and the environmental pollution associated with its use.  In India alone where ICRISAT is based, it has become mandatory to blend petrol with ethanol.  In the Philippines, efforts have been done to promote large-scale use of alternative energy sources such as biofuels.  Recently, President Macapagal-Arroyo signed the Biofuels Act which promotes the production of ethanol as gasoline blend.

According to the ICRISAT scientists, sweet sorghum has a very good potential as an alternative feed stock for ethanol production because it has sugar-rich stalks and is “water-use efficient” similar to the grain sorghum.  The juice from its stalks is the one primarily used for fuel alcohol production. They added that the cost of producing one liter of ethanol from sweet sorghum is lower than that from sugarcane molasses which is the most commonly used feedstock for ethanol production in India and other countries such as the Philippines.  Aside from this, ethanol production process from sweet sorghum, they said, is less polluting than sugarcane and the resulting ethanol has clean burning quality with high octane rating.

ICRISAT has been developing improved hybrid parents and varieties.  In fact, bulk of these was supplied to the Philippines particularly to the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) where large-scale testing is slated to begin this year.  Dr. Heraldo L. Layaoen, MMSU vice president for administration, partnerships, and external linkages, has been chosen national leader of this program which is a collaboration of ICRISAT, DA-BAR, PCARRD, CHED, NEDA-I, and MMSU.

The organization has been also facilitating the incubation of sweet sorghum-based ethanol production technology by prospective entrepreneurs. In October last year, ICRISAT, through its Agribusiness Incubator, inaugurated Rusni Distilleries Pvt. Ltd. of India – a first of its kind in the world manufacturing fuel ethanol from agro-based raw materials such as sweet sorghum stalks and grains.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that does innovative agricultural research and capability building for sustainable development with a wide array of partners across the globe.  It aims to help empower 600 million poor people to overcome hunger, poverty, and a degraded environment in the dry tropics through better agriculture.  It belongs to the Alliance of Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.