Cultivation of bioenergy crops in Gujarat state: a consultative survey process to understand the current practices of landowners

Bioenergy crops can contribute to the reduction of overall consumption of fossil fuels; however, India is a heavily populated agriculture economy demanding huge amounts of food and energy, so use of agricultural lands to produce energy crops puts a direct pressure on agri-based economy. A collaborative project for development of Sustainable Advanced Lignocellulosic Biofuel Systems was launched in 2012 between USA and India emphasizing high biomass bamboo, sorghum and pearl millet feedstock cultivation at marginal ecologies in 9 villages of 3 districts of Gujarat state in India. A baseline survey was conducted by interviewing 415 households followed by focus group discussion to understand socioeconomic profile of the targeted region, agricultural practices, awareness and inclination of local growers toward commercialization of biofuels crops. Survey data were analyzed using SPSS statistical tool. The survey showed that land holding of 2.5–5 acres and 5–10 acres was prevalent, with rain-fed and borewell irrigation and average soil quality having medium to shallow deep soil structure. Annual income from farm showed positive association with soil quality, while lower productivity from bad-quality soil. Households were interested to grow biofuel crops only if they give better net profit as compared to current crops. Good land quality, larger cultivated area and joint family had relatively less risk of bioenergy crop production than the counterpart. Household having above poverty line (77.8%) signified annual income of more than 10,000 INR. Lower literacy rate showed that 5–15% of the members migrated out of village for temporary seasonal livelihood. The districts were well connected with roads with enough frequency of state and private vehicles, railways, government postal services, mobile phone network and round the time electricity for household entitled the districts to penetrate bioenergy market. Leveraging available infrastructure and adopting large-scale co-operative mechanized farming, crop rotation within agro-forestry system, diversification of food, fiber and energy crops through policy support would bring economic and environmental benefits along with new market, job creation and bioenergy industries at surveyed ecology.