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Context:

• India’s ambitious plan to cut the use offossil fuels by promoting ethanol derived from rice, corn and sugar could undermineits food security.

About:

• Ethanol: It is an agro-based product, mainly produced from a by-product of the sugar industry, namely molasses.
• It is one of the principal biofuels, which is naturally produced by the fermentation of sugars by yeasts or via petrochemical processes such as ethylene hydration.
• Ethanol Blending Programme(EBP): It aims at blending ethanol with petrol, thereby bringing it under the category of biofuels and saving millions of dollars by cutting fuel imports and decreasing carbon emissions.
• Blending Target: The Government of India has advanced the target for 20% ethanol blending in petrol (also called E20) to 2025 from 2030.
• Currently, 8.5% of ethanol is blended with petrol in India.

Issues

• National Policy on Biofuel: The new ethanol blending target primarily focuses on food based feedstocks, in light of grain surpluses and wide availability of technologies.
• The blueprint is a departure from the 2018 National Policy on Biofuels, which prioritized grasses and algae; cellulosic material such as bagasse, farm and forestry residue; and, items like straw from rice, wheat and corn.
• Risk of Hunger: The food grains meant for the impoverished are being sold to distilleries at prices cheaper than what states pay for their public distribution networks.
• Competition between the distilleries and the public distribution system for subsidized food grains could have adverse consequences for the rural poor and expose them to enhanced risk of hunger.
• India still ranks 94th on the Global Hunger Index 2020 comprising 107 nations.
• The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that about 209 million Indians, or about 15% of its population, were undernourished between 2018 and 2020.
• The Covid-19 pandemic is also pushing more people into poverty, dealing a blow to decades of progress.
• Cost: Production of biofuels requires land, this impacts the cost of biofuels as well as that of food crops.
• Water use: Massive quantities of water are required for proper irrigation of biofuel crops as well as to manufacture the fuel, which could strain local and regional water resources.
• Efficiency: Fossil Fuels produce more energy than some of the biofuels. E.g. 1 gallon of ethanol produces less energy as compared to 1 gallon of gasoline (a fossil fuel).

Arguments in Favor:

• Enough Stockpiles of Grains: The push for ethanol poses no threat to India’s food security because the government has enough stockpiles of grains at warehouses of the state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI).
• State reserves stood at 21.8 million tons of rice, against a requirement of 13.54 million tons.
• Capacity Creation: The long-term planning of the government involves the creation of sufficient capacities so that half of the requirement of 20% blending is catered by grains, predominantly maize and the rest by sugar cane.
• Benefit of Farmers: The blending plan would benefit corn and rice farmers, while addressing the issue of Surplus.

Way Forward

• Ethanol From Wastes: India has a real opportunity here to become a global leader in sustainable biofuels policy if it chooses to refocus on ethanol made from wastes.
• This would bring both strong climate and air quality benefits, since these wastes are currently often burned, contributing to smog.
• Water Crisis: The new ethanol policy should ensure that it doesn’t drive farmers toward water-intensive crops and create a water crisis in a country where its shortage is already acute.
• Rice and sugarcane, along with wheat, consume about 80% of India’s irrigation water.
• Prioritize Crop Production: With our depleting groundwater resources, arable land constraints, erratic monsoons, and dropping crop yields due to climate change, food production must be prioritized over cropsforfuel.

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