Reddy, B V S and Kumar, A A and Ramesh, S (2007) Sweet sorghum: A Water Saving Bio-Energy Crop. In: International conference on Linkages between Energy and Water Management for Agriculture in Developing Countries, 29-30 January 2007, ICRISAT, Patancheru, India.
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Abstract
The United Nations (UN) eightmillennium development goals (MDGs) provide a blueprint for improving livelihoods, and preserving natural resources and the environment with 2015 as target date. The UN member states and the world’s leading development institutions agreed upon the MDGs. None of them however, have a specific reference to energy security considering that energy is the fuel of economic prosperity and hence assist to mitigating poverty. Nonetheless, diversification of the crop uses, identifying and introducing biofuel crops may lead to farmers’ incomes, thereby contributing to eradicating extreme poverty (MDG 1) in rural areas helping 75% of the world’s 2.5 billion poor (who live on <US$ 2 per day), and contributing to their energy needs. The energy is required for consumptive uses (cooking, lighting, heating, entertainment), for social needs (education and health care services), public transport (road, rail and air), industries, and agriculture and allied sectors. Agriculture practices in many developing countries continue to be based to a large extent on animal and human energy. Providing easy access to energy services (such as conventional fossil fuels renewable sources like solar, wind and biofuels) to the agriculture sector is essential to improve farm productivity and hence income of the peasants. However, access to fossil fuels is not a sustainable solution, as it will not provide social, economic and environment benefits considering very high price of fossil fuels and environment pollution associated with their use. The biofuels, produced from agriculture biomass among other renewable sources provide sustainable and ecofriendly energy options that foster environmental sustainability (MDG 7) and offer enormous opportunities to improve the level of developing world’s smallholder subsistence farmers who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods (www.americanprogress.org). Last but not the least biofuel researchfordevelopment may result from new global, regional, national and local publicprivate partnerships for development (MDG 8).
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | UNSPECIFIED |
| CRP: | UNSPECIFIED |
| Subjects: | Mandate crops > Sorghum |
| Depositing User: | Library ICRISAT |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Dec 2011 06:05 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Dec 2011 06:05 |
| URI: | http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/4835 |
| Acknowledgement: | UNSPECIFIED |
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