Potential of Bioethanol Production from Sweet Sorghum in the Philippines: An Income Analyses for Farmers and Distilleries

The sweet sorghum has been proven to be technically and economically viable alternative feedstock for bioethanol production in the Philippine setting. The plantation, agronomic performance and actual bioethanol production of sweet sorghum was evaluated on different plantation sites nationwide. A hectare of sweet sorghum plantation can potentially provide farmers annual net income of PhP 80,000 (USD 1,860.47;1 USD = 43 PhP) for a cane selling price of PhP 1,000 t−1 and seed selling price of PhP 13 kg−1. The farmers annual income can eventually increase up to PhP 120,000 (USD 2,790.70) ha−1 for a cane selling price of PhP 1,400 t−1. Standard bioethanol distilleries having an annual capacity of 30 million liters can possibly set a maximum mark-up of PhP 25.18 or USD 0.59 L−1 bioethanol. Currently, bioethanol industry has pricing index which makes the domestic pricing competitive against petroleum gasoline and imported bioethanol. Correlations were generated between economic factors like cane buying price, production yield and mark-up on the bioethanol selling price and net income for farmers and distillery.