Trial planting for sorghum eyed amid tight corn supply

The Department of Agriculture plans to grow sweet, sorghum, a grain crop used as raw material for feeds amid tight supply of corn in the country.

“We have discussed about growing other crops which could support the feed milling industry and sorghum was one of those discussed,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said.

“We will have a trial area for sorghum in Mindanao, we will start with about 1,000 hectares,” he added.

While sorghum is not widely known in the Philippines, it is the world’s fifth largest grain crop, next to rice, corn, wheat and barley.

Among the leading producers of sorghum are the US, Nigeria, India, China and Mexico.

Piñol said sorghum has a good potential since it undergoes ratoon cropping, a practice of growing a crop from the stubbles of previous crop.

Sorghum is primarily promoted as a major source of bioethanol but it can also provide for human food, livestock feed and forage, and organic fertilizer.

Studies show that the feed value of sorghum grain is similar to corn, making it a good source of energy and protein for feeds for poultry and cattle.

Several years ago, the private sector has planned to pilot test sorghum to lower feed cost and eventually raise the income of farmers.

The development of sweet sorghum grains as complementary to corn grains as feed raw material is seen to raise the local poultry and livestock sectors’ competitiveness through cost reduction.

The Philippines still imports a significant percentage of corn feed and feed wheat as local production of corn is still not enough and is even on a downward trend.

Corn production is expected to decline by 16 percent in the third quarter to 2.18 million metric tons.

Harvest area may also contract by 11 percent to 784,000 hectares and yield may decline to 2.78 MT per hectare from 2.93 MT per hectare last year.

Cagayan Valley may suffer a significant drop in output owing to the decline in harvest area due to less occurrence of rainfall during the planting period.

Corn production is expected to bounce back in the fourth quarter as farmers signify more plantings in anticipation of good weather conditions and government intervention on seed subsidy.