Sweet Sorghum for Biofuel and Strategies for its Improvement

Self-sufficiency in energy requirements is critical to the success of any emerging economy. Renewable sources of energy are considered to be one of the major pillars of energy security that reduces dependence on fossil fuels besides negating the negative effects on the environment. Sweet stalked sorghums, popularly referred to as sweet sorghums, are multipurpose crop plants that provide food, fodder, feed, fiber and fuel at affordable prices to the rural poor, grows well in areas receiving more than 700 mm annual rainfall and located between 40o south and north of the equator. Popularization of this crop in semi-arid tropic (SAT) areas will bring smallholder and marginal farmers, besides rural poor, into the biofuel revolution as it enhances socio-economic returns on their holdings. In addition to providing a comprehensive latest global bioethanol scenario, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of biofuels, this information bulletin makes an attempt to describe and discuss the different issues impeding the productivity of sweet sorghum, conventional and molecular methodologies/tools to enhance sugar yield without hampering grain yield. This bulletin also gives a bird’s eye view of the development of high biomass low lignin sorghums amenable for second generation ethanol production and different value chain linkage models with an emphasis on sweet sorghum improvement programs at ICRISAT and elsewhere