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Informist, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025

 

By J. Navya Sruthi and Taniva Singha Roy

 

MUMBAI – The use of bamboo as feedstock for ethanol production is gaining traction over sugarcane, owing to less need of resources as well as higher realisation, Pasha Patel, chairman of the Maharashtra State Agriculture Price Commission, told Informist in an interaction on the sidelines of the Globoil event here. Patel said that considering climate change and rising temperatures, bamboo is the only option for biofuel with greater climate resilience. 

 

While sugarcane uses huge amounts of water, bamboo is not a water-guzzling plant, Patel said. One hectare of sugarcane requires 20 million litres of water, whereas one hectare of bamboo needs just 2 million litres of water, he explained. Similarly, by crushing a tonne of cane, 80 litres of ethanol can be produced, while a tonne of bamboo can produce 250 litres of ethanol, he said. 

 

Bamboo offers high realisation of ethanol because it is rich in lignocellulose, a complex carbohydrate that can be converted into fermentable sugars, which are then used to produce ethanol.

 

Support from the Maharashtra state government along with the industry's interest in bamboo cultivation is likely to increase the area under bamboo in the coming years, Patel said. The Maharashtra state government's Atal Bamboo Samruddhi Yojana provides farmers with subsidy of up to INR 700,000 per hectare for bamboo cultivation.

 

"Government has decided on behalf of the Asian Development Bank, to provide Rs. 4,300 crores (INR 43 billion) for bamboo industry," Patel said. Addressing an event on the occasion of World Bamboo Day on Sept. 18, Minister of State for Agriculture Ashish Jaiswal had said Asian Development Bank would provide INR 43 billion to fund bamboo cultivation and research, and to establish bamboo-based industries. 

 

In terms of use of land for bamboo cultivation, farmers do not need to shift from sugarcane and maize for producing bamboo, as it can grow even in barren and wasteland. There is a lot of free forest space that can be used for bamboo cultivation, Patel said. The state government, he said, is "targeting the entire barren land" for bamboo cultivation. In 2025, the area under bamboo in Maharashtra was around 10,000 hectares, he said. 

 

"It (bamboo) grows from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and is found in the entire seven sister states or the northeastern states," Patel said. "So, it can help us to build a constant supply chain for 365 days."  End

 

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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