“I wanted to help them help themselves.”
It is what Raul Palaje dreams of doing for the farmers and their families in a small town in Isabela.
And he believes he may have started something sweet for them through the crop sweet sorghum.
Sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is originally from India. It is similar to grain sorghum in that it has sugar-rich stalks. It is a water-use efficient crop and ideal as alternative feedstock for ethanol production.
In response to the soaring prices of fossil fuels and calls to curb pollution, the Biofuels Act of 2006 was passed into law.
The law also aims to reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil.
“When the Biofuel Act was signed, it opened up new frontiers for science and technology to conduct research on sustainable and renewable energy,” says Palaje, research and development head of Isabela State University.
He says that one of the resources considered was sweet sorghum.
Multipurpose potential
In 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India turned over 105 kilograms of foundation seeds of sweet sorghum to President Macapagal-Arroyo – a ceremony that allowed the crop to take root in the country.
Sweet sorghum holds many benefits apart from generating ethanol as its product. The crop has been tested and proven to have multipurpose potential not only as an alternate feed for ethanol, but also as food and animal feeds.
“We discovered that the sorghum grains may be used as flour and poultry feeds; its juice may be turned into wine and honey. Wala talagang sayang [nothing will go to waste],” Palaje says.
Per evaluation, sweet sorghum has nutritional benefits as well, he adds. It is a rich source of calcium, phosphorous, iron, and vitamins B and C.
Palaje is determined to promote the crop, believing that it will help people in their livelihood.
He began conducting seminars on how to grow and utilize the crop. Among his first clients were the wives of farmers in Barangay (village) Moldero, Tumauini, Isabela.
“I want them to become self-sufficient,” he says of the women.
One of the women invited to the seminar was Rosalia Salas. She, along with 46 others, learned how to make a banana cake, turning the grains of sorghum into flour.
Best-seller
“It has the same taste as a regular banana cake made of all-purpose flour,” Salas says. “For this recipe, we used 50 percent all-purpose flour and 50 percent sorghum.”
The women went on to make polvoron, cookies, cupcakes and muffins out of sorghum flour.
“We sell the banana cake for P40 and it is our best-seller,” she adds.
She says that they get bulk orders from City Hall whenever an occasion arises.
Aling Rosy, as she is fondly called, is the wife of a local farmer in Barangay Moldero.
She is a mother to eight boys who now enjoy success in their careers as architects and engineers.
At present, Salas leads the VTB, or Volawan Ta Barangay (Gold in Barangay), movement. The group came into being when the members discovered the benefits of sweet sorghum.
“This is a good source of livelihood for us. Instead of doing nothing, we are actually making something and helping our husbands with the daily expenses,” she said.
In addition to the pastries, the women also earn from selling vinegar from sorghum.
“We use pure vinegar to hasten acidity and native guava leaves for fermentation,” she says. “After a few days, we already have a bottle of pure organic vinegar.”
A bottle of vinegar is sold for P10. Taking into account their cash outlay, the women see a 42-percent return of investment from the sale of vinegar.
Financial aid
Palaje believes that the small enterprise in Barangay (village) Moldero should be replicated on a nationwide scale, “so that we could alleviate poverty through small means.”
“We really have to work together to give others a better life,” he adds.
“For the VTB women, I sought the help of National Economic Development Authority [Neda] to provide us with ovens so that the women could use it for baking and I got it. I also sought the help of local government agencies to provide financial aid for VTB and they responded,” he says.
Sweet sorghum is now being cultivated in Isabela which is noted for its grasslands.
“This crop is like any other typical grass species which can be grown anytime of the year as alternative to corn and sugar cane,” Palaje says.
He adds that sweet sorghum matures earlier than other seed crops. In addition, sweet sorghum can withstand flood and drought, which makes it suitable for small-scale farming.
“Other crops take 11 to 12 months before we can harvest it and extract ethanol from it,” he says.
Upon maturity, the juice from sweet sorghum is extracted and turned into ethanol.
The by-product of this crop is then blended with gasoline.
“The sorghum potential for renewable fuel is viable, but we need the aid of investors to provide us with a distillery for extraction and manufacture,” he says.
He also notes that, due to scant resources, the Philippines may have to rely on imported ethanol for quite some time.
P200-million distillery
It may take P200 million to put up a distillery, and there is no word yet from the government when this facility will be available for the extraction of ethanol from sorghum.
“For now, we still import ethanol from Brazil. But imagine, if we have our own distillery, we will be producing 45,000 liters of ethanol per day. We will be saving billions of pesos,” Palaje says.
Palaje completed his degree in Agriculture at the University of the Philippines-Los Baños in 1977. He received his MA in Agronomy in the same university.
“It was in UP where I learned that my heart belongs to the farmers, and it is where I became service-oriented,” he said.
In the future, he dreams of fully harnessing sorghum not only as a vital part of biofuels, but as a source of livelihood for many wishing to put up small-scale enterprises.
Copyright 2009 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved.
