The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics has identifed sweet sorghum as a smart crop which can produce both fuel and food. “Sweet sorghum provides an opportunity for developing countries to re-direct oil money that used to go overseas back into their own rural economies,” says Dr. William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, one of the 15 allied centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

“We consider sweet sorghum an ideal ‘smart crop’ because it produces food as well as fuel,” Dr. Dar adds. “With proper management, smallholder farmers can improve their incomes by 20% compared to alternative crops in dry areas in India.”

In partnership with Rusni Distilleries and some 791 farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India, ICRISAT helped to build and operate the world’s first commercial bioethanol plant, which began operations in June 2007. Locally produced sweet sorghum is used as feedstock. Similar public-private-farmer partnership projects with ICRISAT, local industries and farmers are also underway in the Philippines, Mexico, Mozambique and Kenya, as countries search for alternative fuels.

India intends to use a 10% ethanol blend to save an estimated 80 million liters (21 million gallons) of gasoline each year to ease the country’s growing need for gasoline and to reduce carbon emissions. Sweet sorghum in India costs $1.74 to produce a gallon of ethanol, compared with $2.19 for sugarcane and $2.12 for corn.