Sweet surrender
Tropical sugar beet promises to be a better alternative to sugarcane, and at half the cost.
By Gouri Agtey Athale, TNN |
Imagine a crop that gives you all of this — low water usage, short harvest time that frees the land for another crop, high yields so you get better returns, and above all, is a rich source for ethanol, today’s `green’ fuel.
Tropical sugar beet, which has successfully undergone two pilots in Maharashtra, promises to do all this.
While countries such as Colombia and Vietnam grow tropical sugar beet to manufacture ethanol and monosodium glutamate, respectively, in India, the focus is on using tropical sugar beet for making sugar, alcohol and ethanol.
For long, sugar beet used to be regarded as a tropical plant before Napoleon took it to France and ordered that 7,000 hectares be planted with it. He did this since the British Navy had blocked French ports, leading to a rise in sugar prices. “That’s the joke: that it went from North Africa, from countries like Egypt and Morocco, to France and now it’s back in tropical countries,” says Dilip Gokhale, global head, biofuels development, Syngenta International AG, which has brought this technology to India.
Gokhale recalls that the initial trials to plant sugar beet in the tropics gave mixed results. Over the next five years, more trials were done across the world in South America, Africa, China and Australia. “It worked everywhere except India. And we found that this was because of the genetics, and cultivation practices and training of farmers,” says Gokhale.
BS Chavare, chairman, Harneshwar Agro Products, Power and Yeast, agrees: “Cultivation practices have been a big hurdle, and if sugarcane farmers switch to sugar beet, they need to change their approach. Sugar beet sapling requires great care in the first month, to ensure its survival.”
In addition a more important benefit is that of reclaiming the land for further cultivation. “In parts of Sangli district, land is lost every year on account of over watering for sugarcane. If this land is reclaimed, since tropical sugar beet requires one-third the water that sugarcane does, you are actually adding to productive land,” says Gokhale.
Tropical sugar beet, which has successfully undergone two pilots in Maharashtra, promises to do all this.
While countries such as Colombia and Vietnam grow tropical sugar beet to manufacture ethanol and monosodium glutamate, respectively, in India, the focus is on using tropical sugar beet for making sugar, alcohol and ethanol.
For long, sugar beet used to be regarded as a tropical plant before Napoleon took it to France and ordered that 7,000 hectares be planted with it. He did this since the British Navy had blocked French ports, leading to a rise in sugar prices. “That’s the joke: that it went from North Africa, from countries like Egypt and Morocco, to France and now it’s back in tropical countries,” says Dilip Gokhale, global head, biofuels development, Syngenta International AG, which has brought this technology to India.
Gokhale recalls that the initial trials to plant sugar beet in the tropics gave mixed results. Over the next five years, more trials were done across the world in South America, Africa, China and Australia. “It worked everywhere except India. And we found that this was because of the genetics, and cultivation practices and training of farmers,” says Gokhale.
BS Chavare, chairman, Harneshwar Agro Products, Power and Yeast, agrees: “Cultivation practices have been a big hurdle, and if sugarcane farmers switch to sugar beet, they need to change their approach. Sugar beet sapling requires great care in the first month, to ensure its survival.”
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The benefits of growing sugar beet over traditional sugarcane are obvious if one looks at the maths. Sugarcane requires 18 months to harvest while tropical sugar beet takes up to just five months and uses a half to a third of the water that sugarcane needs. On the financial side, the cost of cultivation for cane ranges between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000 per acre, while tropical sugar beet can be grown for nearly half the cost at Rs 10,000-12,000 per acre, explains Chavare. “A yield of 30 tons per acre of tropical sugar beet is economical for the farmer. If this rises to over 40 tons per acre, it is very good,” he says.In addition a more important benefit is that of reclaiming the land for further cultivation. “In parts of Sangli district, land is lost every year on account of over watering for sugarcane. If this land is reclaimed, since tropical sugar beet requires one-third the water that sugarcane does, you are actually adding to productive land,” says Gokhale.
And since beet has higher sugar content, it gives 16% recovery versus an average recovery of 11.5% per tonne for sugarcane in Maharashtra. This adds to the profitability of the crop and helps overcome the sugar price cycle in a shorter time period, says Gokhale: “If you find that there is over-production of sugarcane in September 2007, the earliest you can do anything about it in June 2008, when the farmer can choose not to plant sugarcane. And if production is low, for instance, an increase in land under cane plantation can happen only June 2008 and then the crop will come in two years later. With tropical sugar beet, you can decide today and get production by March-April 2008, either way, to increase or decrease.”
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