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SWEET SORGHUM: Fantastic for farmers, fuel, food, and our future.


AgriFuels is a next-generation agribusiness and renewable energy project. The project employs a high-yielding, proprietary variety of the powerful energy plant sweet sorghum (S. bicolor (L.) Moench) as an input feedstock to produce a suite of of highly efficient and ecologically-sustainable green energy products and food. (Ethanol, electricity, agropellets, gluten-free grain and more)



New projects aiming at industrial-scale energy production using sweet sorghum as the primary feedstock are increasing every week and now number more than 40. (June 2011)

Unlike other bioenergy feestocks, sweet sorghum produces food  products and other valuable by-products from its seeds and cane waste, eliminating the "Food vs Fuel" issue that is frequently raised by biofuels critics.

Sweet sorghum produces fuel ethanol AND food, without adversely impacting existing food crops or requiring the clearing of new land to grow fuels crops. Sweet sorghum provides green electricity and other products from waste and does not impact negatively on the environment. AgriFuels sweet sorghum can grow with only limited water and fertiliser as compared to sugar cane and other crops and is significantly salt-tolerant, permitting it to be grown in high-salinity soils that are often unusable for other crops.

For detailed information on why sweet sorghum is the ideal biofuel feedstock, CLICK HERE FOR MORE . ("WHY SWEET SORGHUM?")


Sweet sorghum: the ideal feedstock for fuel AND food

AgriFuels sweet sorghum is a multi-purpose high energy crop. It produces a highly nutritious, gluten-free grain cob, which can be ground into flour and used for making bread, beer, animal feed or a number of other food products. Sorghum bran contains more healthy anti-oxidants than well-known anti-oxidants such as blueberries and pomegranates.

It also produces a high sugar content cane which is ideally suited to the production of biofuels and green electricity.

Syrup made from the cane juice is a healthy alternative to sugar or honey and often used as a nutritious, natural sweetener or made into a full-bodied rich-flavoured beer. .

Waste remaining after the cane has been pressed can be used to produce paper pulp, other natural sweeteners, green electricity, renewable building materials and fibre for clothing, amongst other products.

Importantly, AgriFuels sweet sorghum can often be grown on marginal lands, not suitable for other crops (e.g., in high salinity or sandy soils), producing additional food and fuel without the necessity to displace existing crops.

While sweet sorghum is relatively new to Australia, it is a long-established crop in many regions of the world, having been grown successfully in Africa and Asia for many centuries and in Europe and American for more than 100 years. It is a staple food amongst large populations of low-income societies where water and fertiliser availability are limited and requires significantly less water and fertiliser than other biofuel crops. (high fertiliser use drives up the cost of crop cultivation and is also known to cause signficant ecosystem damage locally and in run-off areas) CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

Recently, sweet sorghum has been identified as an ideal input feedstock for producing biofuel due to the high efficiency conversion potential of its cane juice for production of ethanol.

Producing fuel ethanol from sweet sorghm is relatively new to western countries, however, its use as an ethanol fuel feedstock is well-established -- last year China and India produced 1.3 billion gallons of ethanol from the crop.1

Many other sweet sorghum-based renewable energy projects similar to AgriFuels are currently being introduced throughout the world. CLICK HERE FOR MORE

And even though sweet sorghum is already highly efficient as a biofuel feedstock, there is huge potential of greater productivity still locked in sweet sorghum’s predisposition to ethanol production. The opportunities for breeding new varieties which will be even more efficient are considerable. As an example, through selective breeding and hybridisation, per acre corn yield has been increased 371% since 1944.2  Sweet sorghum likely holds equivalent or greater optimisation potential and we expect to see increasingly efficient crop yields year on year. 


Sustainability and community involvement:  Keys to the future.

AgriFuels is working with local community leaders, state and federal government bodies, farmers, local industries, overseas experts and local and international partners to develop an Australian sweet sorghum energy industry.  AgriFuels supports and contributes to non-profit organisations that are collectively working to promote the use of sweet sorghum as an energy feedstock worldwide.

Our objective is to create a new, environmentally sustainable energy industry in Australia which minimises our dependence on fossil fuels, abates global warming, reduces our water and fertiliser use, cultivates a new food crop, provides new opportunities for local farmers and other businesses while creating employment and boosting the Australian economy.

AgriFuels' flagship first project is located in southeastern Queensland in Isis Shire, near the township of Childers. Additional projects are being planned for other locations around Australia.

AgriFuels welcomes enquiries from potential partners, potential investors, politicians, media or members of the general public.

Please contact us by clicking on this link Contact Us



1. Dr. Morris Bitzer, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY USA.

2. http://www.bio.org/ind/biofuel/200802fact.asp