Pro-Poor Biofuel Crops: Sweet Sorghum and Cassava
Editor’s Note: I was in Houston, TX, last week, celebrating the International Year of the Planet at the first ever joint meeting between the American societies of Soil Science, Geology, Crop Science and Agronomy. With a significant focus on biofuels, this conference was rife with interesting materials.
The Challenge: Find biofuel crops that are “pro-poor.”
One Answer: Crops that can be grown with limited resources by small-scale farmers, can be converted to biofuel with existing cheap technology, and can simultaneously provide food, fuel, and livestock feed.
In my last post I discussed how agriculture could regain its rightful place as the keystone of civilization due to the rise of biofuels over the next 30 years or so. But, in what seems a ridiculously colossal conundrum, hundreds of millions of impoverished people worldwide could face starvation due to competition of fuel land with food land.
