On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop

Global warming is heating up the thinking of the world about an inconvenient truth: FIRE & ICE.Except that of the Yankees, the Rip Van Winkles of the Millennium.

Remember Washington Irving? You will also remember The Legend Of The Sleepy Yankees a hundred years from now. I certainly hope the world is still around around that time.

One hot little verse written by my favorite Yankee poet Robert Frost, ‘Fire And Ice,’ published inHarper’s Magazine in the winter of 1920, has been inflaming the hearts of many a reviewer of poetry. I like what Katherine Kearns says of it: ‘Like ice shrieking across a red-hot griddle, his poetry does, indeed, ride on its own melting.’ I like best how Jeffrey Meyers describes it (1996, english.uiuc.edu/): ‘concise, laconic, perfect and perfectly savage.’

Fire And Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

One hot little piece of paper has been igniting the passion of many a world government in reducing greenhouse gas emissions following international agreements. It is called the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty in full force since 2005, and which assigns country targets. But the Yankees are unmoved, standing still; the Yankees continue to refuse to ratify the Protocol. It would be pardonable if not for the fact that the US is the single biggest polluter of them all.

One hot little crop has been thawing the icebergs of climate change in the thinking of African and Asian governments about global warming. It is called Sorghum bicolor. But the Yankees are unmoved, standing still; the Yankees continue to ignore sweet sorghum and continue to propagate Zea mays as their elite energy crop. It would be forgivable if not for the fact that corn is hugely more expensive to produce, several times more than gasoline.

What has the world wrought? How do you like the imperial behavior of the Yankees, who up to now don’t even have a Biofuels Act? (Giles Clark, 8 January 2007, biofuelreview.com/) Shame on them! But to be diplomatic about it, let me just call it The Yankee Dawdle, a sin of omission, of unenlightened interest in climate change.

It is the enlightened interest of every country that the Kyoto Protocol be ratified by the whole world but especially by the US, and the gas emission targets reached as agreed upon. Time and tide waits for no one, not even for the mighty United States of America; neither does climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in December 1997. Fiji had acted the first, the fastest and the most furious; she signed on 17 September 1998 and ratified the Protocol on the exact same date. The European Union (all 16 countries) ratified it in 2002, the Philippines in 2003, Russia in 2004; for the last 20 years, the US, along with ally Australia, has adamantly refused to ratify it. The Yankees say ‘No Deal.’ Big Deal!

If the US refuses to be a winner against climate change, can the rest of the world be left behind? If the Yankees doubt global warming, all they have to do is ask the old folks; there is much to learn from folk wisdom. If you’re listening.

Now apparently there is expert wisdom; there is much to learn from expert wisdom. If you’re reading. Today, 3 February 2007, the news from a United Nations study confirms global warming. I first read it in the American Chronicle by email; go to Google and there are more than 2,000 pieces of news of it; the one I like most has it and says it best right in the headline (Oliver Burkeman, 2 February, guardian.co.uk/, cited by buzzle.com/): ‘The scientists spoke cautiously but the graphs said it all.’ Walk softly, but carry a big stick.

Still, the US will dismiss that UN report, unless perhaps Poet Laureate Robert Frost recites that poem to the President of the United States in front of a multitude. I have a dream.

To counter this one intercontinental snub of the Yankees, let us consider this one intercontinental crop of the Indians. I am tempted to call the whole thing The Indian Protocol, because it was in India where a science group had made the first moves, a private group took up the challenge, and farmers joined hands to develop the world’s first climate crop for rainfall-challenged farms in the semi-arid tropics of Africa and Asia, not to mention America. That crop was sweet sorghum. That science group was the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (icrisat), a non-profit, non-political international center of excellence in agriculture and 1 of 15 institute members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (cgiar). That private group was Rusni Distilleries Ltd. The result: The world’s first commercial sweet sorghum-based ethanol distillery, and it began operating last October in Andhra Pradesh, a state with 76 million people, among the most economically challenged Indians. Potential, beginning to be realized. The Indians alone grow sorghum in 9.3 million hectares, about 1/4 of the world’s total of 40 million ha. Potential, yet to be realized.

From the scientific side, The Sorghum Equation is:

Yeast à C6H12O6 = 2CH3CH2OH + 2CO2  heat

That is sugar converted by yeast to ethanol and carbon dioxide, giving off heat. Given that Albert Einstein’s famous E = mc2 is elegant where this is not, nonetheless, where one is earth-shaking, the other is earth-shattering; where one presages the end of the world, the other presages the beginning of a new one – climate on hold. Inspired, I hereby propose the Climate Equation and it is this:

YEAST OF US PEOPLE à SWEET SORGHUM = SWEET US$ + CLIMATE ON HOLD

That is a simple lesson waiting to be learned by the poor like the Filipinos in Asia and Nigerians in Africa, nowrunning scared, and the rich like the Yankees and Australians, not running scared. The Yankees can learn from their own Indy Racing League, which will be running its race cars on 100% ethanol starting 2007 (AEF, 2006, 25x25.org/).

Still and all, sorghum seems to be a crazy choice of climate crop. Indeed. Over 6,000 years old, this one has had a very bad reputation among Yankee scientists. Cornell University lists it as a poisonous plant (2003, ansci.cornell.edu/); the Weed Science Society of America lists it as a weed (2005, weedscience.org/); and the American Phytopathological Society lists it as susceptible to disease, and gives a list of 45 diseases attacking this crop: 3 bacterial, 26 fungal, 12 nematodal, 4 viral (apsnet.org/). Adding to that, it is certain that from the sweet syrup, the US Department of Agriculture has found it difficult to extract dry sugar (2000, ca.uky.edu/nssppa/). Born loser.

But not in Andhra Pradesh, India, at icrisat, whose scientists and experts have developed hybrids that make sweet sorghum a great energy crop and air freshener. To plant with and make richly productive the poor soils in the rainfall-challenged parts of much of the world, the millions of hectares of wastelands. To grow and clean the air of carbon dioxide. To produce ethanol for cars to greatly reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. To raise in millions of hectares, to help forestall climate change. To help the people, poor and rich. Born winner.

The awkward truth is that black power (petroleum-based fuels) has contributed the most to climate change, and that now we must turn to green power (plant-based fuels) if we are to save Planet Earth from the deadly ozone of our own making. And we will do it by pushing fossil fuels over the edge and pushing on photosynthetic power, biofuels. And pushing bodies, minds & spirits. And pushing the Big Bad Wolf Yankee. There are 6 major greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs and PFCs (Larry West, 2007, environment.about.com/). In carbon dioxide emissions alone, the Yankees contributed 5 trillion (5,000,000,000,000) tonnes in 2002 – compare that which the 16 countries comprising the European Union contributed, a combined 6 trillion tonnes (BBC 2005, news.bbc.co.uk/); thus, the US is contributing 13 times more CO2 than the average EU country! While the Europeans have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the Yankees have their own protocol. Building their own Noah’s Ark, I presume? Truth is stranger than fiction. Ostrich-like, the Yankees have been burying their heads in the sands of time, if not in the deserts of science, refusing to face the awesome truth dramatized in the documentary by a Yankee himself, eco-pusher Al Gore as the modern Atlas, his film An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning, directed by David Guggenheim (2006). The Yankees are a United States of Denial. If the Yankees will not be a winner against climate change, we can only be a whiner against the Yankees. Atlas cannot carry the whole world on his shoulders alone. I’m now thinking of a book I will be very sorry to write alone: While Atlas Shrugged, The Yankees Demurred.

Time to listen once more to one of the world’s most respected global thinkers, Lester R Brown, another Yankee, who in his latest book writes that we must now and we can be eco-friendly and save ourselves from the clear and present danger of global warming. His book is entitled Plan B 2.0: Rescuing A Planet Under Stress And A Civilization In Trouble (2006, New York: WW Norton & Co; the whole book is free to download if you go to earth-policy.org/). Translated, that would be transforming Plan B into what I call Planet B, if we could get beyond our global ignorance or indifference to the global meltdown that has startlingly started, as shown dramatically in Mr Gore’s documentary. The Yankee attitude: The proof of the flooding is in the swimming.

Mr Gore’s inconvenient film in fact comes after Mr Brown’s inconvenient book, the first edition having come out in 2001. The Yankees are not listening; Mr Gore and Mr Brown are prophets not without honor except in their own country. In the Preface to the 2006 version (page ix), Mr Brown says, ‘The purpose of this book is to make a convincing case for building the new economy, to offer a more detailed vision of what it would look like, and to provide a roadmap of how to get from here to there.’ And how do we do that? We focus on cars. Mr Brown says:

If economic progress is to be sustained, we need to replace the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with a new economic model. Instead of being based on fossil fuels, the new economy will be powered by abundant sources of renewable energy: wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and biofuels. ¶ Instead of being centered around automobiles, future transportation systems will be far more diverse, widely employing light rail, buses, and bicycles as well as cars. The goal will be to maximize mobility, not automobile ownership. ¶ The throwaway economy will be replaced by a comprehensive reuse/recycle economy. Consumer products from cars to computers will be designed so that they can be disassembled into their component parts and completely recycled.

Great! The only problem with Mr Brown’s grand proposal is that it is all economics. The great economists like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, some of them Yankees, have always been that: Great Economists, no more, no less. Great economics has been the cause of all this global warming in the first place!

Mr Brown does not even mention the very first of the 3 Rs of conservation. The mantra of conservationists has always been Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I memorized that 30 years ago and it’s not rocket science. Mr Brown’s scenario is populated by procedure, not people. In fact, he says on page 7 that we are confronted with ‘two urgent major challenges: restructuring the global economy and stabilizing world population.’ He considers the number of people as part of the problem; I beg to differ – I consider the number of people as part of the solution. He refuses to accept the fact that the Malthusian theory that population tends to outstrip food supply has been debunked many a time – it is ‘a fairy tale,’ says Larry Azar (quoted by Eric Bermingham, 11 November 2006, kolbecenter.org/). The Malthusian theory is unexplained by science, unsupported by experience. And even if Thomas Robert Malthus were right, right now, overpopulation is one of the least of our problems.

I submit that what we have to do is FOR A CRITICAL MASS OF US TO WORK OUT FIRST A USER-FRIENDLY WORLD, and then and only then can we dream of a sustainable universe, where everyone reduces, reuses, recycles. By user-friendly world, I mean the other way around: We people become friendly to Earth. The Earth is Hallowed Ground –Show some respect! We are not Owners of it; we are Users only.

For an exemplary model, a big one in its totality, we turn not to Government but to Science as our Virtual Savior. Now then, if science is to save us from self-destruction, what we need is, in my view, a paradigm and a shift:

Paradigm: Science with a human face.

Shift: From grey to green.

Perspective. ‘Science with a human face’ signifies theory and practice being dedicated to serve the people’s real needs, not simply those imagined by scientists or imaged by thinkers.

View. ‘From grey to green’ signifies fields impoverished turning into soils productive of crops, or super crops turning poor soils into productive ground.

And from there? From green to white, which signifies harvest turning into white as source of heat – ethyl alcohol.This is ethanol ignited to run engines that run transport vehicles, with the result that the air is cleaner than when we started, with the end result that cars and trucks do not contribute to global warming. For it is true that the green crops harvest the bad breath of Earth (carbon dioxide in the air) and turn it into organic matter; and the best of such crops yield the 4 Fs of the organic world: food, feed, fuel, fertilizer.

One of the best 4 Fs crops is sweet sorghum, known in scientific circles as Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench. This complete name originates from Germany; the original taxonomic nomenclature was assigned by the ‘(L.)’ – the Father of Taxonomy himself, Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus (also abbreviated Linn.); the nomenclature has been revised by and so is attributed to ‘Moench’ – the German botanist Conrad Moench. While the US is adamant to change, science stands corrected.

For all its rotten reputation, sweet sorghum, to distinguish it from grain sorghum, is sweet and juicy. It is a wonderful crop in fact. Let me compare it to corn, the energy crop of choice of the poor Yankees.

From Yankee LC Anderson of Iowa State University (August 2000, energy.iastate.edu/), I learn that:

(1) The stalks of sweet sorghum can yield 1,235 gallons of ethanol to a hectare, 2x that of corn. Great provider.

From what I gather from Yankee Syngenta (2003, syngentafoundation.org/), I think this is a thinking plant if ever I heard of one:

(2) When in drought, sweet sorghum remains dormant; with the coming of rain, it resumes growth and recovers, unlike corn. The FAO refers to it as ‘a camel among crops’ because it can survive where the soil is too dry as well as when the soil is too wet (Agronomy21, 2002, fao.org/). Intelligent being.

(3) Again, unlike corn, sorghum’s aboveground parts wait for the root system to be well established before they grow any further. Intelligent system.

To compare further, from AERC Inc (2003, aerc.ca/), and DJ Undersander et al (November 1990, hort.purdue.edu/), all Yankees, I gather that:

(4) Sorghum produces 2x more roots than corn. More roots underground produce more aboveground: stalk, leaves and grains. Designer cereal.

(5) Sorghum has half the transpiring leaf area of corn and, therefore, needs 30-50% less water than corn to produce a unit of matter. Designer plant.

(6) The leaves have a waxy coating (called bloom) and have the ability to fold rather than roll in during drought, reducing transpiration under hot, dry conditions. Designer vegetation.

(7) The plant competes favorably with most weeds. Designer crop.

Sorghum wins! Corn is an also-ran.

Sorghum was cultivated in the dry lands of Sudan over 6,000 years ago (G Grassi, 2001, wip-munich.de/). Since then, it has become a life-saving crop, the staple food of more than 500 million people in more than 30 countries (ET Rampho, January 2005, plantzafrica.com/). Introduced to the United States in the early 17th century, sweet sorghum has been grown mainly for its syrup, which is used as a substitute for sugar (Undersander et al, cited).

In the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) signed the Biofuels Act of 2006 (Republic Act 9367) one year late, on 17 January 2007. Better late than never. With her signature, GMA has set forth the process by which the country will reach a target blend for vehicles of 5% ethanol (E5) with 95% gasoline within 2 years and 10% (E10) with 90% within 4 years. Thailand as well as China wants E10 right away, in 2007 (Moustapha Kamal Gueye, 2006, regserver.unfccc.int/). Brazil is in center stage and now aiming for E100 in 2007 for all new cars (David Morris, 17 April 2005, commondreams.org/). Brazil is dancing the Salsa of the Universe.

Again, in the Philippines, sugarcane is currently the official choice of biofuel crop (Elaine Ruzul Ramos, 2006, manilastandardtoday.com/). Sweetheart, sugarcane may be a good choice, but sorghum is better, much better. I learn that from icrisat, whose paradigm / shift I quoted earlier, the institutional focus / strategy being ‘Science with a human face’ / ‘From grey to green’ (William Dar, January 2007, Nurturing Life In The Drylands Of Hope, Andhra Pradesh, India: icrisat, 160 pages). icrisat is led by a visionary. The Yankees are led by a blurred visionary.

Comparing crops as sources of ethanol, the biofuel of choice of Brazil, India, the Philippines, the US, France and many other countries, icrisat’s brochure ‘Sweet Sorghum’ (Belum VS Reddy et al, 2006, 24 pages) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (Agriculture21, 2002, fao.org/) tell us that:

(1) Sweet sorghum can grow like no crop has grown before: in drylands, acidic or basic soils, waterlogged fields.

(2) Sweet sorghum grows faster than sugarcane, 200 days (2 crops) vs 365 days.

(3) Sweet sorghum needs 4.5 times less water than sugarcane, 8,000 (2 crops) vs 36,000 cubic meters. No irrigation necessary.

(4) Cost of cultivation of sweet sorghum is 3 times less than that of sugarcane.

(5) Sweet sorghum is easily planted, 5 kg of seeds to a hectare; sugarcane requires the handling of 5,000 cuttings. Many hands don’t make light work.

(6) Ethanol production process from sweet sorghum is eco-friendly while that from sugarcane is not.

(7) Ethanol from sweet sorghum is better than from sugarcane for two reasons: it has lower sulphur content (is less polluting) and higher octane (yields more power).

In India, at Andhra Pradesh, with icrisat as incubator of technology (their term), Dr William Dar, Director General of icrisat, inaugurated on 2 October 2006 the production of commercial ethanol by Rusni Distilleries Ltd. In an interview, Dr Dar tells me that Rusni is owned by Mr Palami Swamy, an Indian national. Rusni is a multi-feedstock system, meaning it can squeeze the juice from sweet sorghum as well from sugarcane & other materials. Rusni has already made history: It is the first of its kind in the world (Reddy et al, cited), that is, a commercial sweet sorghum ethanol plant born out of the coalition of the willing: science, citizen and government. Doesn’t the world owe that lesson from the Yankees?

The sweet sorghum story has happened in India, which before that has been advertising itself as (tourisminindia.com/) The Destination Of The New Millennium. It is now.

In the Philippines, intrigued and interested, GMA sent last year Mr Benedicto Yujuico, Special Envoy for Trade Relations to study the icrisat-supported Rusni distillery; upon his return, he recommended replication of the Rusni model in the country. In an email, Dr Dar tells me that GMA has given her full support to the Philippine sweet sorghum project and has accepted the invitation for a project visit to Batac, Ilocos Norte this February. Batac is where Mariano Marcos State University (mmsu) is located; the mmsu campus is the base whereby the discovery sorghums (hybrids actually) of icrisat have been successfully test-planted for the last 2 years by the Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR). In the interview, Dr Dar tells me there are 8 hybrids that have passed through multi-site field trials and are ready for commercial planting, the recommended variety depending on the farm’s location in the country.

In fact, after India, in the Philippines, the wheel of prosperity run by sorghum energy has started rolling. On the 19th of January this year, a technology investment forum was initiated by Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap. As a result, Dr Dar tells me that 5 Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) have been signed between icrisat and Rusni Distilleries on one side and 5 interested local and foreign companies on the other side to use the Rusni multi-feedstock distillery system and icrisat sorghum hybrids. Target distillery-farm sites are the Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog Region, and Central Philippines. To each its own sweet sorghum variety, I presume.

Over lunch with Dr Dar, Dr Luis Rey Velasco (Chancellor of UP Los Baños), and Dr Santiago R Obien (consultant) among others, I am talking to Dr Belum Reddy, Principal Breeder (Sorghum) of icrisat, about the Institute’s 8 sweet sorghums tested in Northern Luzon for the last 2 years through mmsu. Having been Editor in Chief of thePhilippine Journal of Crop Science for the past 6 years, I have been thinking about national (multi-location) testing of many varieties, where the protocol is to select for outstanding performances in a production trial, composite; that is, in the case of sweet sorghum: sugar yield + stillage (bagasse) + grains, average of several locations. So they select in 2 out of the 8 varieties as top of the line. What happens to the others? They select out 6. I suggest another approach: Don’t get the average; get the best performance of each variety. If you’re after sugar, go after sugar. In other words, why not select and recommend all 8? Surely, a different variety is an outstanding performer in a different location, but maybe not in all locations. Dr Reddy is kind enough to agree.

Ethanol is the fuel of choice in the Yankee Ford Company’s alternative fuel strategy program (TMT, 18 April 2006, manilatimes.net/). Ford leads with more than 1 million ethanol-powered vehicles on the road worldwide. Has Ford considered source? As source of ethanol, sorghum is most certainly promising, corn is most certainly not. Yankees Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren of Chicago Sun-Times vehemently declare that corn ethanol is ‘enormously expensive and wasteful’ (27 January 2007, suntimes.com/). They quote the production cost of $2.53 per gallon of ethanol, and affirm that such amount is ‘several times what it costs to produce a gallon of gasoline.’ These Yankees are saying: Wrong crop!

Compared to that of corn ethanol, the economics of sweet sorghum ethanol is sweeter. For instance, in India with Rusni Distillery, the production cost per gallon of ethanol is $1.47 (my computation, data from Reddy et al, 2006).

In the Philippines, Dr Dar tells me the initial investment per enterprise is US$8.5 million for the distillery, which can produce 40,000 liters of ethanol a day. For full operation, it needs 150 people to run the plant, 4,000 hectares to raise sorghum and 20,000 hands to grow and harvest the crop. Considering 5 distilleries, here are the figures: initial investments in dollars US$42.5 million, total area planted 20,000 hectares, farm hands employed 100,000 people, and total ethanol produced in a year 73 million liters. In developed countries, they welcome mechanized farming; in developing countries, they welcome manualized farming, creating jobs. Considering all that, with the 5 different distillery sites, sorghum as one crop alone will have immeasurable multiplier effects on the local and national economies of the islands.

Compare that with sugarcane as feedstock for ethanol. The initial investment is $45.6 million (P2.28 billion) for 1 distillery (Ramos, cited), which is 5 times more than that with sweet sorghum. Too much for an initial investment.

According to AK Rajvanshi & N Nimbkar (2001, nariphaltan.virtualave.net/), sweet sorghum is ‘the only crop’ that provides grain and stem that can be used for sugar, alcohol, syrup, jaggery, fodder, fuel, bedding, roofing, fencing, paper and chewing (animals). Actually no; sugarcane provides all those too, but rather more expensively.

What about the buying price? Dr Dar says that ethanol is now competitive with petrol (gasoline) in India due to high prices of fossil fuels, even adjusting for energy equivalency (1 liter of petrol = 1.5 liters of ethanol) (September 2006, ‘What icrisat Thinks,’ icrisat.org/). ‘The constraint is not the cost of ethanol production,’ Dr Dar says; ‘it is the supply of raw materials.’ Sorghum will supply more stalks for more ethanol for less.

According to Dr Heraldo Layaoen, who is a pioneer scientist grower of sweet sorghum in the Philippines, who is also Vice President of mmsu, within a year, 2 crops of sweet sorghum will yield a combined average of 200 tonnes of sugar to a hectare in 200 days, while 1 crop of sugarcane will yield a maximum of 90 tonnes in 365 days (INF, 10 September 2006, nordis.net/). No comparison. Sugarcane was introduced by the Arab traders to the Philippines before the Spanish era (Jose Maria T Zabaleta, 1997, fao.org/); to me that means the Filipinos have been cultivating the wrong crop for sugar for more than 500 years! Thanks but no thanks. Dr Layaoen says that sugarcane has as high as 14% sugar content while sweet sorghum has 23%. Thank you very much! Translation:

Sweetheart, sugarcane is sweet, but sweet sorghum is sweeter.

Copyright 04 February 2007 by Frank A Hilario. The image shown is the cover of the book by William Dar, Nurturing Life In The Drylands Of Hope – January 2007, Andhra Pradesh, India: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (icrisat), 160 pages – based on the prize-winning painting of Brenda Bae, Grade 11, International School of Hyderabad, part of a competition sponsored by icrisat.In the youth, there is hope.