Sweet sorghum emerges as alternative, cheaper feed for livestock

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua)  - Sweet sorghum is emerging as an alternative and cheaper feed for the growing Philippine livestock industry that has long depended on imported corn and wheat.

The country's agricultural researchers partnered with several farmers to plant and market sweet sorghum and help in reducing feed cost, which accounts for about half of total cost of raising poultry and pigs.

Researchers estimate the sweet sorghum feed mix is roughly six percent cheaper than corn-based feed.

Sweet sorghum is one of the world's most widely grown cereal crop and is used for the making of flour and animal feeds in India, Africa and the Middle East.  

This crop however is only introduced in the Philippine soil in 2006 by the Hyderabad-based International Crop Research for Semi- Arid and Tropics International Crop Research for Semi-Arid and Tropics (ICRISAT).

But Philippine agriculture officials and researchers were hithertofore used sweet sorghum primarily for ethanol production. It will reduce the country's dependence on imported oil and mainstreaming the use of "cleaner" fuel.  

But researchers from the Pampanga Agricultural College (PAC), who have been conducting R&D on sweet sorghum for the past seven years, found not only the most suitable sweet sorghum variety for the Philippine soil but also how it can be used to develop feeds and food products.

Researchers estimated use of sweet sorghum can lower feed cost to P20.49 per kilo compared to P21.86 per kilo for corn-based feed.

The corn-sorghum mix experimental feed costs P20.70 per kilo.

Using sweet sorghum feeds cam speed up the fattening of chicken, according to a research made by PAC. It was fastest to raise average daily grain (ADG) of chicken using sweet sorghum feeds.

Net income from sweet sorghum as feed is also higher at P18.49 per kilo compared to corn's P14.90 per kilo. For the corn-sorghum mix feed, it was P17.31 per kilo.

The PAC maintains a pilot sweet sorghum farm at the foot of Mount Arayat in the province of Pampanga, about 80 kilometers north of Manila.

The state-run college has enlisted several livestock raisers to use this feeds made of sweet sorghum grains. According to Dr. Norman de Jesus, horticulturist and faculty researcher in PAC, livestock raisers like the sorghum-based feed and in fact has the same quality as corn-based feed.

But more than that, de Jesus said that one of the advantages of tilling sweet sorghum is that it can be used as an alternative feedcrop during the lean corn supply season in the third quarter.

Sweet sorghum, after all, is a hardy crop that can grow in arid soils and marginal areas and withstand prolonged droughts. De Jesus said this means that the crop can be an alternate crop to corn and can be grown during the dry season in irrigated areas and during wet season in idle rain fed areas.

Engineer and enterpreneur Antonio Arcangel attested to the marketability of sweet sorghum.

Arcangel, who decided to use his 25-hectare land in the northern Philippine prvince of Ilocos Norte to till sweet sorghum has secured a contract to supply grains to San Miguel Corp (SMC) for its B Meg feeds.

SMC tried 15 tons of sweet sorghum grains for mixture in its formulation, liked the quality of the mix and is keen on ordering more. Arcangel said he has to supply at least 20 tons of grains a month to SMC, but this can only be possible in 2014.

In the meantime, Arcangel organized a cooperative of farmers to produce more sorghum and are now producing food products made from sorghum such as vinegar and syrup. They are also developing gluten- free flour for those with celiac disease.