Sweet Sorghum: A Smart Crop To Meet The Demands For Food, Fodder, Fuel And Feed

Sweet sorghum is a C4 plant with high photosynthetic efficiency producing high biomass with sugary stalks in a short time (4 months) under rain-fed conditions. The stalks can be crushed to make juice, which can be fermented to produce ethanol or boiled to produce syrup. The syrup can be converted to ethanol or to food grade quality syrup to be used as sweetener by the food industry. This chapter highlights income generating opportunities for smallholder farmers from sweet sorghum cultivation and processing through small scale agro-enterprise. This pilot project was conducted by ICRISAT by establishing a Decentralized Crushing Unit (DCU) at the village level to crush sweet sorghum stalks, extract juice and boil it to produce syrup to be used for various industrial uses (ethanol and food). The bagasse (fiber left over after crushing) was used as livestock feed or as fuel. The benefit–cost ratios (BCR) for the options explored indicate that a simple value addition in the form of chopping sweet sorghum stover provides the highest BCR of 2.56, though the sustenance of the agro-enterprise depends on the availability of multiple feedstocks like maize and sorghum stover for optimum capacity utilization and profitability. This is followed by syrup production for the food industry. The establishment of small scale enterprises will pave the way for micro-entrepreneurship at village level and enhance income and employment opportunities, in the process reducing rural poverty.