Seeds For My Sweet.

Sorghum For My Honey, Satisfaction Guaranteed!

The Yankee poultry raisers feed their chickens with expensive food: corn. That is because corn prices have jumped following the high demand for corn for ethanol, GW Bush’s biofuel of choice. Are they riding Volkswagens now? Do Yankees always make terrible food-for-non-food choices?

With each jump in the corn price, the Yankee farmers are happier and the poultry raisers in the US and in the Philippines are sadder. You see, we Filipinos purchase Yankee jokes and buy their corn. This one is for the birds.

Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, says, ‘We’re putting the supermarket in competition with the corner filling station for the output of the farm’ (Matthew Wald, 2006 January 16, nytimes.com). ‘We’ here refers to the Yankees, who thrive on competition, which drives their economy. They have capitalism, don’t they?

Robert Brown, a professor in agricultural engineering at Iowa State University, says ‘The impression is that we’re taking food out of the mouths of babes’ (nytimes.com). No, Professor, we don’t give babies our corn. Where life is harsh, as is often the case, we give them our grit.

Corn aside, Wald says, ‘A global shift to farm-based fuel could reduce the need for oil and slow climate change.’ That’s about the best summary of the whole scenario I have come across. There’s economy of words that reminds me of Henry David Thoreau’s injunction: ‘Simplify, simplify, simplify! … Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose’ (heartquotes.net). Thoreau inspired by Walden, Wald inspired by his own elevated sense of purpose, if I may put it that way. Wald has simplified it well; his sentence of 17 words has 11 essential ones: Global shift, farm-based fuel, reduce, need, oil, slow, climate change. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? That’s => more ethanol from farm crops => less oil from fossil fuels => less carbon dioxide from cars => less ozone depletion => less abrupt climate change. An act hard to follow, a fact hard to swallow.

Have faith in corn for ethanol: That could be the new Protestant ethic. Brown and other Yankee experts are afraid that the new ethic will cause corn and other food shortages in many states, because more farmers would plant more corn, plant less wheat, plant less soybeans. Wendy Wintersteen, Dean of the College of Agriculture, Iowa State U, says that this summer, ‘we will have areas of the state we would call corn deficient.’ But Keith Collins, Chief Economist of the US Department of Agriculture, reminds us that ‘the United States is paying farmers not to grow crops on 35 million acres, to prop up the value of corn.’ That is to say, theoretically, 14M ha can go into the growing of corn and wheat and cotton, so there shouldn’t be any corn deficit anywhere in the United States.

What Collins is saying makes sense to me. But, I say, corn for ethanol is a thoroughly corny idea. Corny, as in inefficient. Corn is only a second-rate feedstock for ethanol. It’s more expensive to produce than, say, sweet sorghum.

Joe Jobe, Executive Director of the National Biodiesel Board, thinks differently. He says, ‘There’s a historical shift under way, not to grow more crops for energy and less for food, but to grow more for both.’

By Jobe, amen to that! We don’t all have to eat corn. We can eat sorghum. Did you know, as is my mantra here, that sugar is sweet but sweet sorghum is sweeter? You better believe it! Heraldo Layaoen, a pioneer scientist-sorghum grower in the Philippines, says sugarcane has 14% sugar content, sweet sorghum has 23% (thesweetsorghuminitiative.wordpress.com).

You don’t entertain the idea of eating sweet sorghum like you eat corn? No problem. If you are in India, you may be able to eat chicken and eat sweeter. That’s because the chicken wing you have in your hand may have come from a bird fed with sweet sorghum. Not necessarily tasting sweeter in the sense of sugar, but tasting nicer, more delicious. Satisfaction guaranteed.

It is as if I have seen it myself. I read in her 2005 annual report that the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has a project titled ‘Exploring marketing opportunities through a research, industry and users coalition: sorghum poultry feed.’ The report says (pages 16-17) that the coalition comprised ICRISAT, the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Federation of Farmers Associations (FFA), Andhra Pradesh Poultry Federation (APPF), and Janaki Feeds. The aim: replace expensive corn in the feeds.

First, small farmers from 4 villages of Mahabubnagar and Ranga Reddy districts of Andhra Pradesh were supplied with new, improved sweet sorghum seeds from ICRISAT in 2003. Satisfaction gained: The harvests impressed the project partners and farmers themselves. Noting their enthusiasm, ICRISAT supplied seeds in 2004 to more than 500 small farmers from 12 villages. From the harvests, the sorghum grains went into new feed formulations for poultry. The feed trials were done on broilers (Cobb chicks) and layers (ILR 90 Jubilee birds). Results? (1) Better – The sorghum-feed broilers and layers had comparable body weights and their feed costs were lower than the corn-feed broilers. (2) And Better – Except for a paler yolk, the sweet sorghum layers did as well as the corn layers in body weight gains and eggs produced, at lower cost.

Team ICRISAT has been able to tell this double-sweet bird story as a product of what it calls the ‘coalition approach,’ whereby partners ‘work together right from the project conception stage to the concluding stage towards a common goal with synergistic effect.’ That’s easier said than done; it is to the credit of the Team as well as the Team Captain, William Dar, their Director General, that the bigger team of ICRISAT + ANGRAU + FFA + APPF + Janaki Feeds had been successful with sweet sorghum grains as corn substitute in feeds for poultry. Success favors a coalition – with a great coalition coach.

The Inconvenient Fruit

An Inconvenient Truth: William Dar,
The Filipino As Global Manager

THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH, ITS ORIGIN IS WESTERN.

Al Gore’s film, Our Film, directed by David Guggenheim, has just won the Oscar for ‘Best Documentary’ as I revise this 26 February 2007, at high noon Manila time. An inconvenient truth is that it is high time we revise everything we have on our hands that has anything to do with polluting the physical environment, not to mention polluting the psychological, spiritual, political, economic environments, not necessarily in that order.

The Inconvenient Truth as documentary also won the Oscar for ‘Best Original Song’ with the one written by Melissa Etheridge, ‘I Need To Wake Up.’

We need to wake up to the reality that we have to have faith in whom we can’t see, such as God and gravity, and to believe in the things we can’t touch, such as the ozone layer above our heads and the bottom of the iceberg beneath our feet. A crewman said of the Titanic: ‘God himself could not sink this ship’ (National Geographic quoted in NextTag.com/) – well, an iceberg tipped the unsinkable ship. The ozone layer protects us from the relentless ultraviolet radiation of the sun; in return, the ozone layer is not protected from our own relentless greenhouse gas emissions, thereby depleting the ozone layer. So: Global warming is of our own making. Planet Earth is our Noah’s Ark; God would not sink Noah’s Ark, but we would.

After the disquieting UN Report on climate change early this month, I happily note in quiet that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (the one that awards the Oscars) has not gangrene but has gone green. The difference is gross: In case of injury or disease, gangrene results from an insufficient blood supply to body tissue; in the case of Hollywood, gone green results from a sufficient blood supply to the brain tissue. With that observation, I shall assume most managers will take a lesson from Mr Global Warner himself. Observe how Al Gore is behaving intelligently in his advocacy: Acting locally, acting globally. Thinking locally, thinking globally. Advocating business unusual.

So now I can tell myself: ‘There is intelligent life on earth.’ Long ago and far away, I asked myself some 40 years before this: ‘Is there intelligent life on earth?’ In those times I thought I was the only intelligent life on earth. You call that conceit. Today, some managers’ conceit is that there is no global warming. Insisting business as usual.

We need to go back to the basics of faith and reason. We are 30 years late in responding to Yankee Al Gore’s global warning but, I hope, not too late. In an interview after the Oscars, he told Kim Chipman (25 Feb, bloomberg.com/) about how to behave globally toward climate change and knowing many Yankees wanted him to run again for President of the mightiest nation in the world:

It’s not a political issue; it’s a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That’s a renewable resource; let’s renew it.

The will to act? The 79^th Oscars acted on its will – in fact, it went green like this (Mary Milliken, 26 Feb, in.today.reuters.com/): first, they made sure the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood underwent an energy audit; then on The Day of the Oscars, movie stars rode in plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars; all around, print materials being distributed had been printed on recycled paper; organic food was served at the Governor’s Ball, with advocacy by the National Resources Defense Council. How green was the Hollywood valley!

About the strange creatures called hybrid vehicles and Hollywood stars, FTM tells us (forthemen.com/) that Cameron Diaz (Shrek) has one, Leonardo di Caprio (The Departed) has two. The Toyota Prius, the first hybrid car released to the public, is very popular with Hollywood stars. The Honda Insight was the first hybrid car sold in the US. Thank God for Toyota and Honda and Hollywood.

How about those of us outside of Hollywood? We can do no less! CNN (06 Feb, cnn.com/) quotes Al Gore as saying:

Our responsibility to our children and those who come after us is sacred and we must discharge our responsibility. And the good news is the changes we need to make are ones that will improve the quality of life. They’re things that we should be doing anyway.

‘My fellow Americans,’ Mr Green Al Gore told the Oscar audience in the US and all over the world (Gary Gentile, Associated Press, 26 Feb, cbsnews.com/), ‘people all over the world: We need to solve the climate crisis.’ Global warming is ‘the overriding world challenge of our time,’ he said. ‘I really hope the decision by the Academy to honor the work by Director David Guggenheim and these producers will convince people who did not go see it to see the movie and learn about the climate crisis and become a part of the solution.’ The producers – Lawrence Bender, Scott Burns, Laurie David (Wikipedia) – have become part of the solution while we’re still part of the problem.

To those who can’t manage their global doubts, or global indifference, I suggest this: First, look at whatever you’re doing (thinking locally) and then think long and hard about what it’s doing outside of you (thinking globally). What about freedom? you Americans may ask. You’re free to decide what to do next. I only hope you appreciate the fact that this time you can’t manage to evade your responsibility in the exercise of your freedom. And why is that? Freedom is like this: You are free to swing your arm short of my nose (I borrowed that from Dean Ricardo Pascual of the College of Law of the University of the Philippines, something I memorized more than 40 years ago). You are free to ride your car and throw your CO_{2 (}acting locally) short of my nose (acting globally).

In case you didn’t know, carbon dioxide or CO₂ is the most infamous of the exhausts from humans. Of the 6 major greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, carbon dioxide leads all the rest: methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs and PFCs (Larry West 2007, environment.about.com/). And the United States is still leading all the rest of the countries with her contribution of 5 trillion tonnes of CO₂ a year, and all 16 countries of the European Union with their total of 6 trillion tonnes (West 2007). This should not be the case.

Enter The Inconvenient Fruit, a different kind of hybrid.

THE INCONVENIENT FRUIT, ITS ORIGIN IS EASTERN.

Belonging to the inconvenient class, fossil fuels are non-renewable; so, making them the major energy source for cars should not have been the case in the first place. Those gas-guzzling-and-therefore-gas-emitting cars have become the antithesis of man’s civilized progress.

We need to completely junk fossil fuels in favor of biofuels – that’s an inconvenient truth. Meanwhile, hybrid cars in many states in the US now use 10% to 90% ethanol to gasoline blends; Brazil uses 24% (Madhu Chittora, 2 May 2005, projectsmonitor.com/). We do have a choice of source: The Yankee gets his bioenergy from Zea mays (corn); the Brazilian gets his from Saccharum officinarum (sugarcane); the Indian gets his from Sorghum bicolor (sweet sorghum). To each his own species.

Let’s go Indian, choosing the inconvenient fruit. Among those I call the climate crops, sweet sorghum is relatively unknown among those species that catch the CO₂ from the air and turn it into food, feed, fuel, fertilizer for the survival of the species. I know that to advocate sweet sorghum as the global source of ethanol for biofuel is to advocate a relatively unknown and largely unappreciated crop in Asia, Africa and America – to write two major feature articles on this poor man’s crop may be on my part an inconvenient froth over an inconvenient fruit. This should not be the case either.

Meanwhile, they have gone Indian at the campus of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (icrisat) in Andhra Pradesh. They have come up with what I shall refer to here as the sweet sorghum initiative. For having come up with the initiative, the concept if not the term, for having led Team icrisat in the rediscovery and nurturing of sweet sorghum as an energy crop, for having successfully marketed the idea of sweet sorghum ethanol first to the private and government sectors in India, for now boldly propagating sweet sorghum as the climate crop in Africa and Asia:

Dr William Dar, Director General of icrisat in faraway India, Filipino, is My Global Manager of the Year (2006).

Since there is no such award, it has been necessary to invent it. I have 7 reasons choosing Dr Dar as my global manager because he has chosen:

A global crop – Sweet sorghum used to be the least famous of those species that catch the CO₂ 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 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 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, Dr 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 you have; ergo, to wysiwyg is to optimize. So: icrisat has come up with sweet sorghum hybrids that are ‘photoperiod insensitive’ – meaning, they can be planted at different months so that there can be harvests of the crop all months of the year, ensuring continuous supply of raw materials, which is necessary for successful manufacturing and marketing. As far as I know, we don’t have corn or sugarcane hybrids that grow well whatever the month or season. So: The planting of icrisat’s sorghum hybrids for ethanol production is a global strategy to implement a global mission / global revolution towards achieving a global vision.

A global outlook – An outlook is a point of view, an attitude (American Heritage Dictionary 2000). By dictionary, the word global has many shades of meaning: international, worldwide, multinational, great, powerful (American Heritage); universal, comprehensive, total, inclusive, overall, large-scale (Microsoft Encarta Dictionary 2005). I will now summarize all those and thereby add my own definition in one word: shared. Within icrisat itself, the work ethic is shared – the work force call themselves Team icrisat. Dr Dar, Team Captain, leads and guides the icrisat staff to work together for the good of all, literally and figuratively. This is how icrisat has been able to produce hybrids of sweet sorghum as well as sell the species as a global crop for ethanol production to Rusni Distilleries Ltd so that now Rusni is producing commercial ethanol from sweet sorghum stalks (IPR, 11 Oct 2006, seedquest.com/). So: Teamwork is icrisat’s internal global outlook in nurturing sweet sorghum as a global crop using a global strategy to implement a global mission to achieve a global vision.

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. Sweet sorghum is actually already grown in many countries: the United States, Australia, Africa (where it is known as durra), India (jowar), Ethiopia (bachanta). On her part, directly inspired by the Rusni sweet sorghum distillery as proof of concept, led by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Philippines has embarked on her own program of producing ethanol from the crop despite the fact that sweet sorghum is exotic to the islands (INF, 10 Sept 2006, nordis.net/). So: icrisat is reaching out globally in nurturing sweet sorghum as a global crop using a global strategy to implement a global mission to achieve a global vision.

A global mode of operation – My readings of the many reports of icrisat and on icrisat have given me another idea. The global mode of operation that this international research institute has adopted for its successful sweet sorghum initiative may be referred to as the sci-fi mode. That’s an acronym for science, citizen, financing, management, good offices, distribution of benefits, ecology. The assumptions here are that there is (a) a coalition of the willing: science, citizen, financing, management, good offices, and (b) a qualification of benefits to man and the ecology. It is science that brings the crop to the attention of the citizen farmer who cultivates the soil and the citizen entrepreneur who brings in the needed technology and financing for a distillery. The good offices that have been supportive of the sweet sorghum initiative of icrisat are (a) in terms of policy – the local and national governments of India, and (b) in terms of advocacy – the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (cgiar), of which icrisat is one of the 15 international centers under its wings. Since the growing of sweet sorghum is labor-intensive, starting with the sowing of the seeds, this crop benefits more people by way of job creation. This kind of sci-fi must be managed well, remembering that what sci-fi management needs is not a business model but rather a development model. And since ethanol lowers the cost of energy for cars as well as lowers the threat of global warming, the sci-fi mode for sweet sorghum distributes the benefits of science-citizen-finance collaboration truly on a global scale, to the largest ecology of them all: Planet Earth.

Al Gore’s film is Our Film, as Planet Earth is Our Town. Thornton Wilder is quoted as saying about his play ‘Our Town’ (PBS (pbs.org/) :

Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the mind – not in things, not in ‘scenery.’ Moliere said that for the theatre all he needed was a platform and a passion or two. The climax of this play needs only five square feet of boarding and the passion to know what life means to us.

We can say then that ‘global warming’ is merely scenery, so we don’t have to present it to the citizens of Our Town. If we believe that, we lack five square feet of understanding and the passion to feel what life means to us, all of us together.

Now then, an inconvenient truth is that what the world needs now is go into not only a paradigm shift but a mode shift. The sci-fi mode I have just described for the sweet sorghum initiative of icrisat is so far a successful attempt to scale up science as to become global, as in:
(a) pandemic, involving wide geographic areas within a country
(b) universal, involving applicability under varied conditions
(c) multi-sectoral, involving all sectors of society
(d) multi-national, involving international partners within a country
(e) total, involving production, processing, marketing of products and distribution of benefits
(f) regional, involving formal groupings of several countries in an identifiable geographical setting
(g) worldwide, involving multiplier effects or ramifications throughout the world.

Cannot the climate change initiative of Al Gore learn from all that?

Sugarcane ethanol is the Brazilians’ choice, corn ethanol is the Yankees’ choice. Sweet sorghum ethanol has lower sulphur and higher octane and is cheaper to produce than sugarcane ethanol (Belum VS Reddy et al 2006, ‘Sweet Sorghum,’ icrisat brochure), as well as is cheaper than corn ethanol (Michael H Lau et al 2006, afpc.tamu.edu/). With a global manager in the person of a Filipino from Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur in Northern Philippines, an inconvenient PhD (Horticulture) graduate from the University of the Philippines Los Baños working in inconvenient India, sweet sorghum as an inconvenient fruit is proving to be a convenient fruit of science in the service of the people, directly aimed at effectively delivering good fire to stronger car engines, contributing good wealth to fuller people’s pockets, distributing good health from cleaner everyday winds.

Al Gore’s Occidental initiative is global warning; William Dar’s Oriental initiative is global cropping. Oh, East is East, and West is West / And it’s up to us to make sure / The twain ever shall meet.

Al Gore is a layman talking science; William Dar is a scientist talking layman. They are talking the same language: it’s called Global Warming. The Oscar for The Inconvenient Truth is another global warning about the survival of Planet Earth as we know it, our own survival as a species as we cherish it.

Another ‘scholar of grand ideas,’ in Andrew Leigh’s words (2000, econrsss.anu.edu.au/) is Francis Fukuyama, who is into politics and economics and is Chairman of the Board of a new magazine, The American Interest. Fukuyama is best known as the brash author and proclaimer of The End Of History And The Last Man published by the Free Press in 1992. Fukuyama says in his book The Great Disruption (1999): ‘A great deal of social behavior is not learned but part of the genetic inheritance of man and his great ape forbears’ (quoted by Marc D Guerra 2001, acton.org/). Now, I don’t think Fukuyama’s theory of the great disruption of social order worldwide in the 3 decades between the 1960s and 1990s is correct, but if we continue to ignore the 3 decades of global warning by Al Gore, it is not to the American interest only that we are not descendants but that we are the great apes ourselves and Fukuyama’s prediction will come true:

The End Of History And The Last Man.

Copyright 27 February 2007 by Frank A Hilario. The image of Al Gore and the globe is from the Internet; what you see is my rendering by Photoshop.

Fire & Ice

On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop

The Yankee Dawdle.

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 in Harper’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, now running 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, 25×25.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 CO_­2 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 17^th 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 19^th 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 the Philippine 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.

Sugar Is Sweet.

Sweet Sorghum Is Sweeter

Waterlogged sweet sorghum in the Philippines (courtesy of icrisat)

From faraway India comes what I call the Sweet Sorghum Initiative (SSi), starting with this crop as the source of ethanol. Between a seed of sweet sorghum and a liter of ethanol, there lies many a great untold story. I shall be telling you those stories here from now on.

You are looking at an image of a crop of sweet sorghum planted in a farm in the Philippines that is waterlogged. The plants have tilted towards the ground that is wet, and yet they look robust – because they are. This is a trial planting of a sweet sorghum hybrid from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (icrisat), photo courtesy of icrisat. ‘Semi-arid tropics’ refers to wastelands such as drylands and wetlands, where the soil conditions are extremes for plants to grow: rainfall fails, irrigation is unaffordable, soil fertility is very low, and farming is discouraging. Now comes a hardy crop like sweet sorghum that can grow where most crops will not, and you can expect an optimum harvest all the time. And with hybrids, you can expect even more.

Sweet sorghum is a crop for low-income farmers, for entrepreneurs, and for mitigation of climate change all at the same time – that is the message I gather from the sweet sorghum initiative.

While I invented the term, the sweet sorghum initiative is really that of icrisat, an international research center under the aegis of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (cgiar). What icrisat has done is successfully package the sweet sorghum production technology with processing technology and ‘sold’ this package to the Indian Government at Andhra Pradesh. As a result, now the Rusni Distillery is producing ethanol from the sorghum stalks and grains. From computations done at icrisat, sweet sorghum ethanol is much cheaper to produce than corn ethanol or sugarcane ethanol. The poor farmers are enriched, the entrepreneurs receive their just due, the government is happy it can help, and the environment is cleaner with less exhaust of carbon dioxide from cars and trucks and such that use gasoline-ethanol blends.