The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development worked with Japanese researchers in exploring the research and development and marketing prospect on biofuels in the Philippines.

PCARRD said in a press release that in line with Japan's search for non-petrol fuel sources, Chiba University professor Atsushi Maruyama and Japan Intage Inc. researcher Satoshi Kai visited the agency last month to look into the current status of biofuels in the country.

Agency officials presented proposals for an Integrated R&D Program on Biofuels, focusing on the subprogram on utilization of sweet sorghum and cassava for ethanol production; and for an R&D program on Jatropha curcas for biodiesel production.

They said that Japan's ethanol requirement is estimated at 6.0 billion liters per year or about 10 percent of its total fuel requirement.

However, its current production capacity is only 7,100 liters a day or 100 million liters per year.

PCARRD, among the leading agencies in the advocacy for an integrated national R&D program on biofuels, said that such supply gap represents a huge export opportunity for the Philippines and other Asian countries, the press release said. Sugarcane and cassava are the more popular sources of ethanol although the viability of cassava as an ethanol source has yet to be established.

Other commodities being tested are sweet sorghum, corn and molasses. Based on available data, sweet sorghum may also be good source of ethanol in the Philippines. Sweet sorghum can yield up to 6,000 liters per hectare per year, higher compared to cassava's 2,700 L/ha/yr, the PCARRD press release added.*

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