LEGAZPI CITY—The International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) has developed the “smart biofuel crops” that are now being used and promoted to ensure energy and environmental security amid the raging global debate on whether the biofuel revolution is causing imbalances in food security and produces greenhouse gases.

Smart biofuel crops are those that ensure food security, contribute to energy security, provide environmental sustainability, tolerate the impacts of climate change on shortage of water and high temperatures and increase livelihood options, Dr. William Dar, director general of Icrisat, said in a statement reaching media organizations here.

“The time has come to ensure that only smart biofuel crops are developed and utilized so that they can link the poor farmers of the drylands to the biofuel market, without compromising on their food security or causing environmental damage,” Dar said.

Through its BioPower Strategy, Icrisat is developing and promoting sweet sorghum as a major feedstock for bioethanol. Sweet sorghum is a carbon dioxide-neutral crop, which is a big contributory factor to being called a smart crop.

Icrisat-bred sweet sorghum varieties and hybrids have increased sugar content in the juice in their stalks. Icrisat’s rainy season varieties give 42-percent higher sugar yield, and rainy season hybrids give a 20-percent increased sugar yield.

Sweet sorghum (otherwise known as sweet corn) has a strong propoor advantage since it has a triple product potential grain, juice for ethanol, and bagasse (crushed stalk waste) for livestock feed and power generation.

Its highlight is that there is no compromise on farmers’ food security, since the grain is available for the farmers, along with the sugar-rich juice from the stalk that can be distilled to ethanol.

There are other benefits also. It is a cost-effective and competitive feedstock. It has a shorter crop cycle of four months compared with the 12 months of sugar cane.

“It has a water requirement of 4,000 cubic meter to produce a kiloliter of bioethanol, compared with 36,000 cu.m required for sugar cane,” according to Dar.

Putting all the factors together, the feedstock cost to produce one kiloliter of ethanol from sweet sorghum is $81.6, whereas it is $111.5 for sugar cane, and $89.2 for maize.

Sweet sorghum is tolerant to water scarcity and high temperatures, two qualities which will keep the crop in good stead when the climate changes with global warming.

It also has high water-use efficiency. While sorghum requires 310 kilogram (kg) of water per kilogram of dry matter, maize requires 370 kg of water per kg of dry matter.

Sweet sorghum is a carbon dioxide-neutral crop that makes it environment friendly, and does not add to greenhouse- gas emissions. During its growth cycle, a hectare of sweet sorghum cultivation absorbs and emits 45 tons of carbon.

ALLEGATIONS that a mass-housing project took a backseat to make room for the financing of the national broadband network (NBN) are not true, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

Multilateral organizations, governments, academe and other stakeholders have joined the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP) to help address the region’s development challenges.

Business-process outsourcing (BPO) companies are more focused on managing people rather than the recurring issues of fast peso appreciation and increasing wages and real-estate cost in the country to sustain their growth this year.

LEGAZPI CITY—The International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) has developed the “smart biofuel crops” that are now being used and promoted to ensure energy and environmental security amid the raging global debate on whether the biofuel revolution is causing imbalances in food security and produces greenhouse gases.

SARIAYA, Quezon—Several farmer-traders at the Sentrong Pamilihan ng Produktong Agrikultura ng Quezon (SPPAQ) revealed their success stories as daily trading activities among buyers and sellers inside the central vegetable market here have reached three tons of agricultural products.

INDEPENDENT power producer TeaM Energy Corp. said it has been allowed by the National Power Corp. (Napocor) to trade its surplus output of 253 megawatts (MW) at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).