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(2) It multiplies the farmers. Have the farmers no capital for fertilizer or pesticide? There is a sorghum variety for
him, and him, and him; they don’t have to apply fertilizer or pesticide. That is crucial, as fertilizer and pesticide
comprise the major costs of cropping (fao.org).
Sorgo is the single crop that
can theoretically be the silver
bullet we can shoot to kill the
vampire called global warming.
That crop can be neither corn
nor sugarcane because these
are needed mostly for food and
feed. If you take corn or
sugarcane as your feedstock
for producing ethanol, you are
competing with the humans
and animals for their
sustenance, solving a problem
and creating another.
(3) It multiplies the carbon gas guzzlers. All vegetation captures
carbon dioxide from the air and via photosynthesis turns it into
organic matter: stems, leaves, fruits, flowers. All crops clear
the air; from what we’ve known of sorgo, planting sweet sorghum
is the better farmer’s clean air act. With its corn-like wide and
long leaves, sorgo is the best crop drinker of bad air and
therefore the best mitigating crop for climate change.
(4) It multiplies the consumers. Sorgo has multiple uses: food
(grains, syrup and jaggery from both stalk and grains), feed
(from grains), fuel (for firewood, biofuel), forage (leaves, stalks),
fertilizer (the whole plant) (‘Sweet Sorghum,’ icrisat.org). And
the syrup is valued by the food industry for its color and taste; it
is also high in iron (Texas A&M University, sorghum.tamu.edu).
(5) It multiplies the water. Since sweet sorghum grows with much
less water than most crops, especially rice, (a) we don’t need
expensive irrigation systems, and (b) we can have more uses
of precious water.
Sorgo is the single crop that can theoretically be the silver bullet
we can shoot to kill the vampire called global warming. That crop
can be neither corn nor sugarcane because these are needed mostly for food and feed. If you take corn or
sugarcane as your feedstock for producing ethanol, you are competing with the humans and animals for their
sustenance, solving a problem and creating another.
And the processing of ethanol from sorgo is more environment-friendly than ethanol from corn (the US’ choice of
biofuel crop), since sorgo goes straight to ethanol extraction, no messy necessary prior transformation from
starch to sugar (icrisat.org): sorgo is all sugar.
Already, there are sweet sorghum initiatives worldwide: India has started producing ethanol from sweet sorghum
(business-standard.com); the Philippines has initiated its own sorghum ethanol program according to Agriculture
Secretary Arthur Yap (bar.gov.ph); China is shifting from corn to cassava and sweet sorghum as its source of
ethanol (ap-foodtechnology.com); Africa (Zambia) is ‘energizing itself’ with sugarcane and sweet sorghum as
sustainable sources of power (gfse.at); and Texas is currently establishing farmer co-ops to produce every year
12 M gallons of ethanol from sweet sorghum (cleanhouston.org).
Al Gore Of Science