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A global crop – Sweet sorghum used to be the least famous of those species that catch the CO 2
from the air and
turn it into food, feed, fuel, fertilizer for man and beast – and help mitigate global warming for all of us sinners &
saints, black & white & brown. I happen to believe that sweet sorghum is the best climate crop of them all, for 7
reasons; here’s a summary of what I said about it in ‘The Yankee Dawdle. On Discovery Sorghum, The Great
Climate Crop,’ earlier published in American Chronicle:
(1) Sorghum is a much cheaper source of ethanol for blending with gasoline
than sugarcane.
(2) It is plantable in wastelands, drylands and wetlands, so it does not have
to compete for space with major food crops like rice, wheat and corn.
(3) Like rice, sweet sorghum is a cash crop; it grows fast and the farmer
harvests in 4 months.
(4) Since it thrives even on poor soils, sweet sorghum can save on millions
of dollars of fossil fuel-based fertilizer imports where the optimum – not
the maximum – sustainable yield is the objective.
(5) Sweet sorghum is the crop of millions of poor farmers, and therefore any
increased need for the harvest increases their benefits from their crop.
(6) Cultivating sweet sorghum as crop for ethanol production will save more
millions of dollars in terms of fossil fuel non-imports than corn or
sugarcane.
(7) An ethanol distillery based on sweet sorghum is less polluting than that
based on sugarcane or corn.
A global reach and
impact - Today Africa,
tomorrow the world.
Already, ICRISAT has
regional centers and
research stations in
Africa: Kenya, Niger,
Mali, Zimbabwe, Malawi,
Mozambique. ICRISAT is
now reaching out to
Asian and American
countries with its sweet
sorghum initiative.
A global vision – ICRISAT’s global vision is ‘Science with a Human Face.’ A
‘corporate vision is a short, succinct, inspiring statement of what the
organization intends to become and to achieve at some point in the future’ (1000ventures.com). ‘Corporate success
depends on the vision articulated by the chief executive or the top management.’ As chief executive of ICRISAT, Dar
has been articulating this global vision for 7 years now. I have not seen or read a vision more global than that for
science. So: Sweet sorghum for ethanol production is a global crop with a global vision.
A global mission – A mission must be that which is designed to help bring about a vision. With that in mind, as I see
it, ICRISAT’s advocacy of a ‘Grey to Green Revolution’ (William Dar 2007, Nurturing Life In The Drylands Of
Hope, ICRISAT, Andhra Pradesh, India, in CD) is the Institute’s global mission. So: Growing sweet sorghum for
ethanol production is implementing a Grey to Green Revolution towards achieving a global vision.
A global strategy – From Vadim Kotelnikov (2001, 1000ventures.com), we learn that a strategy is ‘the way in
which a company orients itself towards the market in which it operates and towards the other companies in the
marketplace against which it competes. It is a plan an organization formulates to gain a sustainable advantage
over the competition.’ As I see it, sweet sorghum was chosen by ICRISAT as its climate crop not for maximizing
production but for optimizing it: what you sow is what you get (wysiwyg). To optimize is to make the most of what
An Inconvenient Truth