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of purpose’ (heartquotes.net). Thoreau inspired by Walden, Wald inspired by his own elevated sense of purpose,
if I may put it that way. Wald has simplified it well; his sentence of 17 words has 11 essential ones: Global shift,
farm-based fuel, reduce, need, oil, slow, climate change. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? That’s => more
ethanol from farm crops => less oil from fossil fuels => less carbon dioxide from cars => less ozone depletion =>
less abrupt climate change. An act hard to follow, if not hard to swallow.
Have faith in corn for ethanol: That could be the new Protestant ethic. Brown and other Yankee experts are afraid
that the new ethic will cause corn and other food shortages in many states, because more farmers would plant
more corn, plant less wheat, plant less soybeans. Wendy Wintersteen, Dean of the College of Agriculture, Iowa
State U, says that this summer, ‘we will have areas of the state we would call corn deficient.’ But Keith Collins,
Chief Economist of the US Department of Agriculture, reminds us that ‘the United States is paying farmers not to
grow crops on 35 million acres, to prop up the value of corn.’ That is to say, theoretically, 14M ha can go into the
growing of corn and wheat and cotton, so there shouldn’t be any corn deficit anywhere in the United States.
What Collins is saying makes
sense to me. But, I say, corn
for ethanol is a thoroughly
corny idea. Corny, as in
insignificant. Corn is only
a second-rate feedstock
for ethanol. It’s more
expensive to produce than,
say, sweet sorghum.
What Collins is saying makes sense to me. But, I say, corn for ethanol
is a thoroughly corny idea. Corny, as in insignificant. Corn is only a
second-rate feedstock for ethanol. It’s more expensive to produce
than, say, sweet sorghum.
Joe Jobe, Executive Director of the National Biodiesel Board, thinks
differently. He says, ‘There’s a historical shift under way, not to grow
more crops for energy and less for food, but to grow more for both.’
By Jobe, amen to that! We don’t all have to eat corn. We can eat
sorghum. Did you know that sugar is sweet but, as I have already
written, sweet sorghum is sweeter? You better believe it. Heraldo
Layaoen, a pioneer scientist-sorghum grower in the Philippines, says
sugarcane has 14% sugar content, sweet sorghum has 23%
(thesweetsorghuminitiative.wordpress.com).
You don’t entertain the idea of eating sweet sorghum like you eat corn? No problem. If you are in India, you may
be able to eat chicken and eat sweeter. That’s because the chicken wing you have in your hand may have come
from a bird fed with sweet sorghum. Not necessarily tasting sweeter in the sense of sugar, but tasting nicer, more
delicious. Satisfaction guaranteed.
It is as if I have seen it myself. I read in her 2005 annual report that the International Crops Research Institute for
the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has a project titled ‘Exploring marketing opportunities through a research, industry
and users coalition: sorghum poultry feed.’ The report says (pages 16-17) that the coalition comprised ICRISAT, the
Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Federation of Farmers Associations (FFA), Andhra Pradesh
Poultry Federation (APPF), and Janaki Feeds. The aim: replace expensive corn in the feeds.
Seeds For My Sweet