Sweet Sorghum is best option for alternative energy – Farmers
Sorghum Farmers and Seed Growers in the Northern Region were on Wednesday urged to recommend the use of sweet sorghum for biofuel under the Savannah Accelerated Development (SADA) Project.
“You need to make a case to SADA that the sweet sorghum crop should be considered under the biofuel component of the project, for which a plant for the production of alternative energy is to be set up through Public Private Partnership,” Dr Ibrahim D.K. Atokple, has suggested.
The Sorghum Breeder at the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute at the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research, (SARI) gave the advice in an interview with Ghana News Agency at the opening of a training workshop for Sorghum Farmers and Seed Growers in Tamale.
The two-day workshop on Sorghum Hybrid Production brought together about 30 participants from the districts of the Northern Region to build their capacity to enable them to produce the sorghum hybrid in commercial quantities.
Asked why he was suggesting sorghum, Dr Atokple said none of the sweet sorghum’s component goes to waste: “The stock can be used for ethanol, the residue is used in poultry feed and the grain is for consumption”.
Comparing the crop with maize and jatropha and others, he said sweet sorghum outshines all the other proposed because of it is resistant to most climatic conditions. It can also be cultivated in both the minor and major farming seasons.
Dr Stephen Nutsugah, director of SARI, said the seed is very important in the field of agriculture: “It is the beginning of plant life, which is very crucial and needs careful handling.”
He said good and quality seeds maximized profit thereby helping to improve the livelihoods of people on the agricultural value chain.
He, therefore, advised women to venture into the seed growing business.
Dr Nutsugah explained that SARI had the responsibility to introduce improved varieties of crops to address the production problems of farmers and meet the consumption patterns and preferences as well as market demand.
SARI, he said, also had the mandate to conduct agricultural research, particularly, those related to food and fibre crop farming in the Northern Region with the aim of introducing improved technologies to enhance productivity.
Source: GNA