Research institute commissions Andhra Pradesh plant

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has commissioned a 40,000-liter per day fuel ethanol and extra-neutral alcohol re-distillation plant at Mohammed Shahpur village in Medak district, Andhra Pradesh, India. The US$7 million project, initiated by ICRISAT and Rusni Distillery, converts juice from the sweet sorghum stalk into bio-ethanol. ICRISAT has become among the first institutes in the world to facilitate a project that links a distillery producing ethanol from sweet sorghum to the poor and the marginal farmers of the semi-arid tropics. (October 13, 2006)