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Stress on striking balance between food security & biofuel development
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Saturday, 30 August, 2014, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Canberra
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fiogf49gjkf0d The right to adequate food for all should be a priority concern in biofuel development, but the two can be achieved simultaneously, according to Dr William Dar, director-general, ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics). Dr Dar expressed this view while speaking at the annual Crawford Fund Food Security Conference held in Canberra recently.
Dr Dar explained, “We can link the poor and marginal farmers with global biofuels revolution without compromising their access to food and nutrition.” He emphasised on the need to overcome the food-fuel trade-off by promoting feedstock like sweet sorghum that could grow on marginal lands and hence did not compete with food production.
He added, “At ICRISAT, our global pro-poor BioPower initiative focusses on biomass sources and approaches that do not compete with but rather enhance food and nutritional security. Sweet sorghum is one such ‘smart’ multipurpose crop – the grain is used for food while the stalk is used for bioethanol production.”
Dr Dar stated, “With the threat of an energy crisis looming globally, there is a potentially huge demand for ethanol from sweet sorghum. We believe that this crop provides a wonderful opportunity for dryland farmers to earn more money from the stalks through making ethanol, and at the same time benefit from its grain’s high nutritional value. Also along with its resilience under extreme weather conditions – it is vital to fighting poverty and food and nutritional insecurity.”
Dr Dar’s goal has been to bring to the attention of the world the need for better research-for-development, as well as policy and strategy convergence for food security and biofuel development among countries worldwide.
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