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By Manny Galvez, The Philippine STAR via SEAMEO SEARCA

Local officials are cashing in on sorghum to touch off an ethanol boom in this town.

Mayor Abundia Garcia told The STAR that the municipal government is embarking on the massive propagation of sorghum. A Malaysian investor, in fact, has signified intention to infuse P470 million in investments for the production of sorghum at a 2,000 hectare area in the western barangays of Bagong Sikat and Sta. Isabel, some 100 kilometers north of Manila.

The Malaysian investor, Nik Ibrahim Bin Awang, met with Garcia at the municipal hall to start negotiations for the sorghum plantation in the two barangays, a known Agrarian Reform Community (ARC) occupied by 1,400 agrarian reform beneficiaries. The area has been selected because of its strategic role in the overall development thrust of the municipality where rice, corn, tobacco and sugar cane are the other dominant crops.

Since it was launched as an ARC in 1993, the area has steadily developed with household income now reaching P75,000.

Awang is the managing director of Kelantan Concrete Product, Atlantic Network and Atlantic Palafox, three Malaysian companies engaged in the building and manufacture of concrete products, bricks, pebbles, granite and palm oil.

Awang said it will be his first major investment in ethanol production outside of Malaysia and the first known foreign investment in this town.

The venture, Garcia said, could potentially generate 1,000 jobs and additional income to local farmers.

Garcia said Awang would be granted fiscal and non-fiscal incentives such as tax-free importation of materials and equipment in line with the thrust of Gov. Aurelio Umali to provide all forms of incentives to further entice legitimate foreign investments.

Garcia said sorghum is grown in the ARC during the dry season where the average yield is 110 cavans per hectare. The crop makes an ideal source of ethanol where it is used as feedstock, it can produce as much alcohol as sugar cane, is flood- and drought-resistant and may be harvested twice a year. It can also be planted in marginal areas not suited for hybrid corn.

Other crops used in ethanol production are corn, wheat and sugar cane.

But unlike these crops, sorghum has multiple uses – feed, food, fuel and forage. From the crop’s stalk can be squeezed sugar-rich juice suited for ethanol production. Sweet sorghum is found to have high sugar content – 15 to 23 percent as against sugar cane’s 10 to 20 percent. The juice can be made into “basi,” vinegar and syrup.

Further, the biomass after the extraction of juice is rich in micronutrients that can be used as forage for animals. Its grains can be grounded into flour for the making of cookies and other snacks. Its leaves are good feeds for goats and cattles which its roots are good fuelwood.

The establishment of a sorghum plantation here is considered a major breakthrough in the ethanol industry in the country. Ethanol, a homegrown fuel, can be used as a transportation fuel, as a blend to gasoline, a component of reformulated gasoline or a primary fuel with gasoline as blend.

Last January, Republic Act 9367, also known as the Biofuels Bill, was signed into law to ease the country’s overdependence on imported fuel.

Ethanol, also ethyl alcohol, is safe, non-polluting, non-toxic, has lower volatility compared to gasoline thus, reducing air pollution and provides better engine performance by preventing engine deposits.

World sugar leader Brazil pioneered ethanol fuel in the 1970s to combat rising energy costs. Brazil’s exportable surplus is about one billion liters while Japan is the largest importer at 450 million liters per year.

Other countries are slowly venturing into ethanol production such as Australia, South Africa and Thailand. Because it reduces emission of toxic substances, enabling countries to earn carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol for the reduction of greenhouse gas emission..

In India, ethanol is produced from molasses, a by-product of the sugar milling process.

Aside from Brazil, the world’s biggest ethanol exporters are US, France, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

In 2005, the country’s first ethanol plant San Carlos Bioenergy Inc., was launched in Pangasinan.

In Central Luzon, an American bioethanol company E-Cane Fuel Corp., is putting up a $150-million (P6.9 billion) fully integrated ethanol processing facility.

Awang was accompanied in his trip here by Lib Palafox, general manager of Verman-Palafox Engineering Construction Co., which has a tie-up with Atlantic Palafox.

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