Tamil Nadu

“Set up ethanol producing facilities”

KARUR: Sugarcane growers have called upon the Central and State governments to take steps to establish ethanol producing facilities from out of sugar to make sugarcane farming more viable.

Pressing the demand, the Working President of the Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association Mahadanapuram V. Rajaram observed that researches elsewhere have proved that producing ethanol from sugar has come in handy for the cane growers, especially in the United States.

At a time when the prices of petroleum products were skyrocketing in the international market that had a critical impact on the domestic market, production of ethanol by groups of cane growers would at one time meet the domestic need for fuel and at the same time turn out to be remunerative for the farmers.

A US-based firm, EUPL, has come up with a small Ethanol converter from sugar and that would be economical and handy for the farmers to earn some additional money. Roughly the equipment would cost Rs. One lakh and the cost of manufacturing Ethanol was $ one per gallon. It is estimated that around 130 litres of Ethanol could be produced from the machine in a week using sugar, Mr. Rajaram added.

The Central and the State governments could look at the opportunity and if found viable provide the cane growers funding for getting the equipment that could liven up the farmers, he said.

Lamenting that forward trading of several essential commodities has resulted in prices of them spiraling, Mr. Rajaram has urged the Centre and the State governments to take stern and effective steps to curtail forward trading in commodities. For all that, the farmers were not getting a remunerative price for their produce, he pointed out.

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