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Soil moisture. Having read much and thought about crops and water, years ago I came to the conclusion that the
problem of lack of water for irrigation can be solved best by? Lack of water. That is to say, do not irrigate at all, or
irrigate sparingly. My lack-of-water theory explains why I became interested in sweet sorghum, a crop I had never
seen and finally did see with my own eyes courtesy of William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT. I joined the August
29 Laguna field trip of the experts convened for the ‘Expert Consultation On Biofuels’ co-sponsored by the Asia-
Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Associations (APAARI), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI),
Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
and ICRISAT meeting at IRRI. At Los Baños, we saw sweet sorghum growing. (The photo comes from ICRISAT; it
shows Dar, who is tall for a Filipino, being dwarfed by sweet sorghum.)
In the Philippines, Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) is the ICRISAT pilot site for sweet sorghum. In the village
of Bungon in Batac, Ilocos Norte, there is a sweet sorghum cane mill and they are producing ethanol, vinegar,
jaggery, syrup, cookies, popgrain (Ma Eloisa E Hernandez, bar.gov.ph). A farmer can earn 50K pesos from a
hectare. I would like to see that too. It’s easy to imagine because I understand you can use the same small-farm
sugarcane mill on sorghum with just a little adjustment.
ICRISAT has a flyer online by Belum Reddy,
‘Sweet Sorghum: A water-saving, bio-energy
crop for the Philippines’ (icrisat.org). Reddy says
that, compared to using sugarcane in producing
ethanol, sweet sorghum (1) costs less, (2) gives
added value in the grains (2-6 tons/ha), (3)
bagasse is rich in nutrients and minerals, good
for livestock, (4) process is less polluting, (5)
ethanol has higher octane rating, better for your
vehicle. I have written about sweet sorghum and
ICRISAT myself here: ‘On Discovery Sorghum’ and
‘The Sweet Sorghum Initiative.’
I’m looking at the ICRISAT printed 4-page 4-color
pamphlet titled ‘BioPower: ICRISAT’s Pro-Poor
Bioenergy Initiative in Asia and Africa’ aimed at
‘energizing a pro-poor revolution.’ Smart, if you
put it that way.
Is the Philippines ready for a crop-based, carrich,
capitalist-run economy? If any country can
be, it already is. The islands are good for tanning visitors from other lands as well as growing vegetation that love
the tropical atmosphere.
Biofuel Islands