Subir Roy: Where's the water to grow biofuels?

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Strong lobbies have been at work arguing that India should produce more biofuels so that its dependence on imported fossil fuels is reduced and the country's energy security is enhanced. This has translated into an argument for more sugarcane cultivation to raise the supply of ethanol, which is currently mandated to be blended up to 5 per cent in petrol. Fresh demands are two-fold "" raise the 5 per cent to 10 and seek state help to further research enabling the blending of ethanol with diesel, whose volumes are much larger. The political support for sugar-sugarcane-biofuels stretches across party lines. They are all in it together.

To the older argument for promoting sugarcane cultivation to enhance energy security has been added a new one. There is a massive sugar glut in the country, leading to a 25 per cent fall in sugar prices over the last one year. Hence the demand for new policy to create additional demand for sugar. The sugar economy has to be propped up as at its base live large numbers of farmers whose livelihood depends on it, not to speak of the politicians-cum-sugar barons who live by them in turn. For good measure, it is also being added that ethanol is a clean fuel whose use is beneficial for reducing greenhouse gas emission, a cardinal goal in this year of concern over runaway climate change.

Conspicuously missing in this entire public discussion is any reference to water. How much water does it take to cultivate sugarcane, is it by any chance a water guzzler, what is India's water balance, will raising sugarcane cultivation land us in a era of even greater water scarcity than the present energy scarcity? Almost nobody is publicly asking these questions, leaving the field open to the sugar interests.

The fact is that there is now almost equal global concern over water as there is over energy. The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has just completed a five-year study of the global water scenario. According to the study, both India and China are in the danger zone when it comes to water; they are using 60 per cent of their entire potential usable water for human purposes. They are approaching 75 per cent, which is the threshold for being considered to be facing water scarcity. It has been estimated that by 2030 Indian cereal demand will go up by 60 per cent from present levels, requiring 84,000 billion litres of water. By then it will require 9 billion litres of ethanol to meet 10 per cent of the country's petrol needs, adding 22,000 billion litres or about an additional 26 per cent to the country's water needs. Do we have that much or water?

According to the same report, it takes 1,000-4,000 litres of water to produce a litre of biofuel. Brazil uses 2,200 litres of water to produce a litre of ethanol from sugarcane, whereas India uses 3,500 litres of water for the same purpose. In India it is widely accepted that it takes twice to thrice the amount of water to grow sugarcane as it does to grow rice. It takes four to four and a half months to grow a paddy crop against 9-12 months to raise a sugarcane crop. Also sugarcane has more biomass than paddy and so requires more water to grow.

The international example of Brazil is most widely cited to argue the case for growing more sugarcane and producing more ethanol. Brazil has been developing the technology for 30 years and its ethanol is now fully competitive globally with motor gasoline. But Brazil is in a water-rich region whereas India is not. Brazil gets an average annual rainfall of 90 inches, India 49 inches. Brazil has a population of 190 million, India 1.1 billion. The land-man ratio is even more skewed against India "" a population of 380 per sq km for India compared to 23 for Brazil. Thus, not only does Brazil get almost twice the level of rainfall as India, the latter has nearly six times the number of mouths to feed.

What do we make of all this? P V Shenoi, former head of India's oilseeds mission and a Borlaug award winner, feels that a comprehensive view needs to be taken of what cultivating each crop entails and what can happen if there is a significant shift in cropping pattern over an extended period of time. It is necessary to work out the water balance sheet of the country, which is already changing with rising incomes, with any major change in cropping pattern. He feels "we should not to rush into a new paradigm without proper analysis. I feel it will be dangerous to sharply raise the cultivation of sugarcane, given the water situation, but I am willing to be proved wrong by a proper study."

Shenoi's apprehensions are shared by at least one other expert. Charlotte de Fraiture, citing the same IWMI study, says she does not see much biofuel potential in India and China. "It's not that I'm saying don't go for biofuels. It's just that India and China are two water-short countries," she told Reuters. Global bioethanol production doubled between 1990 and 2003, and is projected to double again by 2010. Biofuel crops currently consume just 1 per cent of the total water used globally for food cultivation. But if biofuel usage rises as projected, it could be using 80 per cent more water by 2030 than it does now.

So there is strong evidence to suggest that biofuel is not the route for India, given its water balance. To listen to the sugar interests could result in serious adverse consequences. The extensive cultivation of sugarcane in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has created unmanageable demands for water, leading to serious political tension between the two states. It is frightening to think what can happen to the country if it becomes engulfed by many more water disputes.
subir.roy@bsmail.in