Solution for materials and industrial production

By 2025, the country’s biofuel output will reach 1.8 million tonnes, meeting 5 percent of its petroleum demands. However, developing materials for biofuel production poses many problems and needs to be resolved.

Vietnam has the potential to develop biofuel from producing cassava, corn and sugar which can replace oil and gas. In addition, the country has a lot of land that can grow cassava and corn. It is estimated that Vietnam can produce around 5 million litres of bio-alcohol every year.

Any prospects for cassava?

Le Minh Duc, head of the Environment and Sustainable Development Department of the Institute of Industry, Policy and Strategy (IPSI), says that Vietnam needs around 1.5 million tonnes of dried cassava (around 4 million tonne of fresh cassava) by 2020 and about 2.5-3 million tonnes of dried cassava (equal to 8 million tonnes of fresh cassava) by 2025. Accordingly, the country will need around 200,000 ha of cassava with capacity of 20 tonnes per hectare in 2020 and around 300,000 ha with a capacity of 30 tonnes per hectare in 2025.

Luu Quang Thai, President of Board of Directors of Dong Xanh Joint Stock Company in Quang Nam says the country currently produces 9-10 million tonnes of fresh cassava. If 62 factories operate at full capacity they can process around 4 million tonnes. The remainder will be dried and be around 2.4 million tonnes of cassava, 700,000-800,000 tonnes will be used as animal food and the remainder will be used to produce ethanol or exported.

When cassava is processed into starch or ethanol, its value doubles. If domestic materials can meet the country’s demand for ethanol by 2015 according to a project to develop biofuel by 2015 and vision to 2025, Thai says.

Professor Tran Ngoc Ngoan, Deputy Director of the Thai Nguyen Agriculture and Forestry University, says that cassava can grow on uncultivated and fallow land.

Cassava can help poor people who are not able to invest in production. If there is a proper policy, cassava can develop sustainably. Success in Tay Ninh province is a typical example.

Do Thanh Hoa, director of the Tay Ninh provincial Department of Industry and Trade, says Tay Ninh is the country’s largest cassava area. It has 46,000ha of cassava with output of 28 tonnes per hectare. Cassava is now replacing rubber and sugar. The price of 1kg of cassava is VND2,400-2,500.

Controlling cultivation areas

The biggest difficulty is that Vietnam’s cultivated land per capita is lowest in the world, therefore it cannot expand cassava cultivation areas.

Hoang Tuan Hiep from the Institute of Agricultural Planning and Project says his institute is developing a plan for agriculture by 2020 with a vision for 2030. Accordingly, the country will grow 40,000ha of cassava in this period meanwhile the area dropped by dozens of hectares in 2009 compared to 2008.

Hiep says that in recent years, people in the central highland region have destroyed forests to grow cassava, that the local authorities cannot control. He cites a case in Kon Tum province where the cassava cultivation has reached more than 40,000ha, 20,000 ha above the target.

Hiep adds that the country plans to have 40,000ha of cassava in the future. Developing cassava to make biofuels must be included in the country’s master plan and its economic efficiency compared to other plants.

Sharing the same view, Nguyen Tien Chinh from the Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment says that we should not pay too much attention to cassava because environmental risks when using cassava in production are high. For example, waste from the Thanh Chuong Cassava Mill in Nghe An province killed fish from Thanh Chuong to Nghe An and the wastes recorded from the Vedan Factory is also very typical.

Chinh also says that the modern trend is to produce bioalcohol from cellulose and oceanic plants and to produce ethanol from straw and grass. He adds that the most important issue now is to devise measures to increase output, not just to expand cultivation areas.

Do Tan Dinh, Director of the BT Trade Company, says in addition to supplying cassava to 60 starch mills, a large volume of cassava roots is exported to China. So we should only increase cassava exports from 5 to 10 percent while leaving more land for growing sugar cane and other plants.

Do Thanh Hoa adds that as Tay Ninh annually imports nearly 700,000 tonnes of dried cassava from Cambodia we should carefully consider the demands for cassava production and export. – VOV