World Grain - December 2006 - 23

FEATURE

Down
out
but not

F

or many years, the world sorghum industry consisted
of two very distinct sectors: the traditional, subsistence
farming sector, where most production was consumed
directly as food in places like Africa and Asia, and the modern, mechanized high-input sector, where the finished product was primarily used as animal feed, mostly in developed
countries.
In recent years, an industrial sector for the crop has developed. Increasingly, sorghum is being used as a raw material
in renewable fuels production, particularly in the U.S., where
about 12% of the sorghum crop is used to make ethanol. However, the crop is still primarily used in food and animal feed.
While worldwide production numbers for several major
crops - most notably corn and soybeans - have soared during the last 15 years, annual sorghum production has remained
relatively flat during that time, fluctuating mostly between 53
and 59 million tonnes, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics.
Production has trended slightly downward in many of the
major sorghum-producing countries during the past decade.
India, although still the country with the greatest harvested
area, has seen that number drop from 10.4 million hectares
in 1999-2000 to 9 million hectares in 2005-06. Production
has always been a challenge in India, with yields coming in at
about 54% of the world average.
China is another major sorghum producer that has seen a
drop in both area harvested and production. The area harvested has decreased 44% during the past seven years, from
979,000 hectares in 1999-2000 to a projected 550,000 hectares in 2006-07. Production has dropped from 3.2 million
tonnes to 2.4 million over that seven-year span.
The opposite has been true in Africa, where the crop rewww.World-Grain.com / World Grain / December 2006

by Arvin Donley

The sorghum industry has faced
difficult challenges in recent years,
but opportunities for growth exist
mains critically important for rural food security. The harvested area has soared in the past seven years in countries like
Ethiopia, Nigeria and Sudan, which will earmark 6 million
hectares for sorghum production in 2006-07, about 1.5 million more hectares than in 2000-01, according to the USDA's
Foreign Agricultural Service.
In the western hemisphere, production in countries such as
Argentina and Mexico has remained steady. But in the U.S.,
acreage has dropped from 16 million in 1984 to 6 million in
2006 and production has fallen from 22.7 million tonnes in
1992-93 to an estimated 7.3 million in 2006-07.
Jeff Dahlberg, research director for the National Sorghum
Producers (NSP), an organization based in Lubbock, Texas,
U.S., said reasons for these declining numbers include:
* the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a governmental policy that offers incentives to farmers who convert erosion-prone cropland into vegetative-covered land;
* commodity programs that are more favorable to other
crops;
* more favorable insurance coverage on other crops;
* a reduction in sorghum research and investment by private industry.
23


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World Grain - December 2006

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of World Grain - December 2006

Contents
World Grain - December 2006 - 1
World Grain - December 2006 - 2
World Grain - December 2006 - 3
World Grain - December 2006 - Contents
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