CROPS : BEYOND FOODS*)

Oleh
Kusmayanto Kadiman**)

I. INTRODUCTION
Crops have essentially many functions and benefit particularly for human
being. Their products are not only as primary source of human foods and
animal feed, but also as source of timber, fibers and biomass energy. In
addition, crops have also an essential function to maintain ecological systems
and natural environment.
Most of crop production is used as foods. Recently, more crops are
cultivated for non food use such as pharmaceutical and nutritional products,
chemical derivative products such as adhesive, paints, polymer, plastics and
industrial oils in forms of bio diesel, ethanol, two cycle oils, transmission fluids,
lubricants.
Many efforts have been carried out to grow crops for foods production
in order to strengthen food security, and to alleviate the hunger and poverty
particularly in developing countries. However, our attention should also be
directed toward cultivation of crops for non-food use. Since, in some cases,
cultivating for non-food products may provide a higher value added, a higher
profit, and higher income. Therefore it will increase farmer’s income. The
hunger and poverty problems are not essentially rely on the incapability of
individual to produce of foods by themselves, but depend on capability of
individual to access foods by their income.
This paper describes the importance of biofuel production to anticipate
fossil-fuel energy crisis now and in the future. Topics covered includes potential
crops for biofuel production, available technology for biofuel production,
______________________________________
*) Paper delivered on The 1st International Conference of Crop Security, Malang,
September 20-23rd, 2005
**) State Minister for Research and Technology, RI
and future challenge of biofuel development in the perspective of science and
technology.

II. PROSPECTIVE OF BIOFUEL

Biofuel is a commodity that has good potential and prospective to be

developed now and in the future. Biofuel is potentially used as substitution for
gasoline and diesel. World demand of gasoline and diesel is very huge, about
2,487 million ton or 67% of world needs of petroleum oil. In Indonesia, the
demand of gasoline and diesel per year is about 42 million kiloliters or about
65% of Indonesia fuel consumption. The gasoline and diesel are mainly used for
transportation.
Declining supply of petroleum oil due to some oil refinery and
exploration breakdown, and steady demand increase of petroleum oil cause
price of petroleum oil soars beyond expected/predicted level. Consequently,
demand of biofuel will increase due to its competitive price. The world demand
of bioethanol and biodiesel increases to 71 million tons, valued at £28 billion.
Eventhough, at present, biofuel market capture is only 3% of the world fuel
consumption but it could be grown rapidly since energy consumption will
continuously reserve of petroleum oil is depleting.
A number of key factors will influence the demand of biofuel, including
potential performance of the bio-products,, their sustainability, 'cost of use',
politics, consumerism, the green movement and global climate change. Biofuel
has some advantages than conventional petroleum oil, i.e. more sustainable,
renewable, non-toxic and biodegradable.

III. POTENTIAL CROPS FOR BIOFUEL PRODUCTION

There are many opportunities for producing fuel from agricultural crops
namely food crops, industrial crops and non food crops. Food crops covers pulse
crops (soybean, peanut), tubers crops (cassava, sweet potatoes), and grains
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(maize, sunflower, rapeseed). Industrial crops consist of palmae (oil palm,
coconut, sago), sugarcane etc. The non food plant covers Jatropha curcas L,
Jarak kepyar (Riccinus cumunis L.), Ceiba petendra etc.

There are two kinds of biofuel derived from crops, i.e ethanol and
biodiesel. Ethanol can be produced from any grain, root, tubers, fruits
containing fermentable carbohydrates. It also can be made from crops,
residues, or wood that contains cellulose or other long-chain carbohydrates
which can be hydrolyzed to fermentable sugars.

Vegetable oils are produced from numerous oil seed crops. Some of
these oils have been evaluated as substitutes for diesel fuel (biodiesel). While
all vegetable oils have high energy content, most require some processing to
assure safe use in internal combustion engines.
The simplest form of agricultural biomass energy use involves direct
combustion of cellulosic crops or residues, such as hay, straw, or corn fodder,
to heat space or produce steam. Such fuels are useful for heating farm
buildings and small commercial buildings in rural areas and for drying crops.
Crop yields and potential alcohol production of the highest-yielding
cultivars of several carbohydrate producing crops are shown in Table 1. Sweet
potatoes produced 40% more alcohol per unit area than Jerusalem artichoke
and two to four times as much as the other carbohydrate crops. Jerusalem
artichokes (sunchokes) have been widely promoted as an energy crop and had
the second highest alcohol production potential..
Potatoes are somewhat lower in total carbohydrates than sweet
potatoes; thus, alcohol yields would be less even if total yields were similar.
The technology for making alcohol from potatoes is well developed and this
crop is worthy of consideration in areas where high yields are possible.

The highest-yielding cultivars of several oil seed crops are shown in

Table 2. In addition to oil, all of these crops produce a high protein content
which is a valuable feed for livestock and a human food supplement. The high
protein content of the oil seed meal makes it a valuable by-product.
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 Sweet potato and sweet sorghum have the best potential for alcohol
production. While sweet potato had the greatest calculated alcohol yield per
acre, sweet sorghum likely could have equaled it if a more efficient juice
extraction process could have been used. Sweet sorghum juice does not require
cooking or enzymatic treatment before fermentation. However, sweet potato
has a clear-cut storage advantage since sorghum juice must be fermented
within a few hours unless it is refrigerated or frozen.

Table 1. Total crop yield and calculated alcohol yield of several carbohydrate
producing crops
Calculated
N rate Yield
Crop Cultivars alcohol yield
(kg/ha) (MT/ha)
(l/ha)

Sweet potato
'Jewel' 120 42.6 5821
[Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.]

Jerusalem artichoke 'Mammouth

56 30.7 4169
(Helianthus tuberosus L.) French White'

Sweet sorghum
'Meridian 71-1' 112 72.8 2196
[Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench.]

Potato
'Pontiac' 112 22.6 1830
(Solanum tuberosum L.)

Sugar beet
'USH 20' 168 31.4 1640
(Beta vulgaris L.)

Fodder beet
'Mono Rosa' 168 32.3 1309
(Beta vulgaris L.)

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 Table 2. Production of seed, oil and protein by several oil seed crops.
Yield (kg/ha)

Crop Cultivar Seed Protein Oil

Sunflower
'Interstate S-7101' 2240 426 801
(Helianthus annuus Mill.)

Okra
'White velvet' 4677 1169 794
(Hibiscus esulentus L.)

Soybean
'Essex' 3360 1008 604
(Glycine max L.)

Sesame
'Paloma' 1599 671 639
(Sesamum indicum L.)

Sallower
'S-108' 555 222 211
(Carthamus tinctorius L.)

IV. BIOFUEL TECHNOLOGY

The technology for processing raw materials from crops to biofuel has
been developed and commercially available. The processing technology to
produce alcohol or ethanol is shown in Fig.1. Basically, the process is based on
the fermentation process of carbohydrate or sugars.
The process technology to produce biodiesel from Crude Palm Oil is
illustrated in Fig.2. The process is based on transesterification of CPO as
shown in Fig.3.

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 Figure 1. Technology process of ethanol and gasohol production

Methanol
Catalyst

CPO Preparation Transesterification

Bleaching Drying
Methanol

Distilation
BIODIESEL
Purification
Gliserin Product
By Product

Figure 2. Technology process for biodiesel production

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 Figure 3. Transesterification of CPO

V. WORLDWIDE BIOFUEL DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION

Some countries has developed and produced ethanol and biodiesel. USA
and Brazil produced 33,65 million tons of ethanol from corn. USA is also
developing biodiesel from soybean. European countries have developed
biodiesel from rapeseed oil. Brazil and India produced 66,197 million tons of
ethanol from sugarcane. Indonesia and Malaysia produced biodiesel from oil
palm and The Philippines developed biodiesel from coconut. Brazil, Thailand
and Indonesia also produced 13,172 million tons ethanol from Cassava.
Some countries has exercised biofuel program both form ethanol-
gasoline blend program such as USA (E-10 and for Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) E-
85), Canada (E-10 and for FFV E-85), Sweden (E-5 and for FFV E-85), India (E-5),
Australia (E-10), Thailand (E-10), China (E-10), Columbia (E-10), Peru (E-10),
Paraguay (E-7), Brazil (E-20, E-25 and FFV any blend).

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 Indonesia has explored the potential biodiesel from oil palm. The
engineering centre of BPPT (Agency for Assessment and Application of
Technology) has carried out a series of biodiesel assessment covering process
research and optimization, property test, performance test, road test,
development of Biodiesel Prototype Plant and Biodiesel Pilot Plant and
socialization & commercialization. Indonesia has set up the national target for
biodiesel use at 2% of national demand (720.000 kl) in 2009. It will need 8-25
units of biodiesel plants of 30.000-100.000 ton/yr capacity .

VI. FUTURE CHALLENGE OF BIOFUEL DEVELOPMENT

It is likely that fuel production from agricultural crops will replace

conventional fuel production and utilization practices in many regions, if the
supply or price of conventional fuels inclines drastically as the current situation.
Ethanol and biodiesel appears to have considerable potential to be used as
substitution of gasoline and diesel fuel.

To accelerate development and commercialization of biofuel, a wide-

range of research and development and expertise in basic and applied science
are needed covering fields of crop sciences, processing and utilization
techonologies, to economic and life-cycle assessment.

In crop sciences, the area of research covers genomics, enzyme,

composition and metabolism of plant method to produce high yield crops with a
lower cost, high quality of crops with application of precision farming. All of
this study is basically needed before developing a new fuel crops variety.

In crop processing, the research should be focused on optimation

method of biofuel process technology such as development of biocatalyst,
finding an effective and efficient separation and conversion, and economical
analysis of bio process.
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 In product utilization, the research is focused on economics,
functionality, performance, novel uses, price/value, perception and market
development.