Download - icrisat

37
Compared to that of corn ethanol, the economics of sweet sorghum ethanol is sweeter. For instance, in India with
Rusni Distillery, the production cost per gallon of ethanol is $1.47 (my computation, data from Reddy et al., 2006).
In the Philippines, Dar tells me the initial investment per enterprise is US$8.5 million for the distillery, which can
produce 40,000 liters of ethanol a day. For full operation, it needs 150 people to run the plant, 4,000 hectares to
raise sorghum and 20,000 hands to grow and harvest the crop. Considering 5 distilleries, here are the figures:
initial investments in dollars US$42.5 million, total area planted 20,000 hectares, farm hands employed 100,000
people, and total ethanol produced in a year 73 million liters. In developed countries, they welcome mechanized
farming; in developing countries, they welcome manualized farming, creating jobs. Considering all that, with the 5
different distillery sites, sorghum as one crop alone will have immeasurable multiplier effects on the local and
national economies of the islands.
Compare that with sugarcane as feedstock for ethanol. The initial investment is $45.6 million (P2.28 billion) for 1
distillery (Ramos, cited), which is 5 times more than that with sweet sorghum. Too much for an initial investment.
According to AK Rajvanshi & N Nimbkar (2001, nariphaltan.virtualave.net), sweet sorghum is ‘the only crop’ that
provides grain and stem that can be used for sugar, alcohol, syrup, jaggery, fodder, fuel, bedding, roofing, fencing,
paper and chewing (animals). Actually no; sugarcane provides all those too, but rather more expensively.
What about the buying price? Dar says that ethanol is now competitive with petrol (gasoline) in India due to high
prices of fossil fuels, even adjusting for energy equivalency (1 liter of petrol = 1.5 liters of ethanol) (September
2006, ‘What ICRISAT Thinks,’ icrisat.org). ‘The constraint is not the cost of ethanol production,’ Dar says; ‘it is the
supply of raw materials.’ Sorghum will supply more stalks for more ethanol for less.
According to Dr Heraldo Layaoen, who is a pioneer scientist grower of sweet sorghum in the Philippines, who is
also Vice President of MMSU, within a year, 2 crops of sweet sorghum will yield a combined average of 200 tonnes
of sugar to a hectare in 200 days, while 1 crop of sugarcane will yield a maximum of 90 tonnes in 365 days (INF, 10
September 2006, nordis.net). No comparison. Sugarcane was introduced by the Arab traders to the Philippines
before the Spanish era (Jose Maria T Zabaleta, 1997, fao.org); to me that means the Filipinos have been cultivating
the wrong crop for sugar for more than 500 years! Thanks but no thanks. Dr Layaoen says that sugarcane has as
high as 14% sugar content while sweet sorghum has 23%. Thank you very much! Translation:
Sweetheart, sugarcane is sweet, but sweet sorghum is sweeter.
The Yankee Dawdle