The Yield Dividend: 5-10X Increase in Sorghum Opening New Options for Africa?

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... In South Africa,, Chromatin and Zaad Holdings have entered into an alliance to produce and distribute planting seed for grain and forage sorghum throughout the African continent.

In Africa, sorghum is used in the food and beverage industry and as animal feed. The crop conserves water resources, providing food security in areas where fresh water is limiting.

Let’s put this in context. Africa has 40 million hectares planted in sorghum. That’s 98.8 million acres, appreciably more than all of the US corn crop. But African sorghum is primarily grown from saved seed, an option that often results in low yields. Historically, Africa has seen yields in the 0.5-1.0 metric tons per acre range from these open pollinated sorghum varieties.

Ugandan Breweries Limited has become an important purchaser of sorghum in the region. The company’s Agribusiness Manager Joseph Kawuki noted, “Last year we needed 9000 MT for our brewing needs, but could only get 6000 MT from local production. Now, with Chromatin’s hybrids, I believe our farmer suppliers will produce the grain we need and have excess for other uses.”

Africa’s rapidly growing dairy industry which consumes large quantities of crop biomass known as forage. Chromatin has developed highly digestible sorghum hybrids that can significantly improve milk production yields. “There is no milk without forage,” said Mahmoud Benchekour, President of the Milk Producers Association of Algeria. Back in 2014, ACI agreed to distribute new and improved hybrid sorghum seeds across the North African region to help meet the growing demand for animal feed.

A 5X improvement across the continent — and Chromatin tips that up to 10X can be achieved — could result in a 50% bump in sorghum tonnage, while reducing acreage by 55%. Thereby releasing 53 million acres for other staple crops such as soybeans and wheat. Or, bioenergy.

Using standard grain ethanol productivities seen with modern agriculture in the US, that’s enough land released from its current use to produce 26.13 billion gallons of ethanol. By contrast, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s figures, Africa has 11.7 billion gallon gasoline demand. Putting the two together, it’s not difficult to see that there’s an opportunity for Africa, in this context, to gain options on how its agricultural land is used — potentially, to become an energy exporter. READ MORE