Brazilian sorghum harvest on the rise as ethanol feedstock

In Brazil, Globo Rural reports the sorghum area in Brazil is expected to increase 10% in the 2025/26 harvest, to 1.796 million hectares, after having already grown 12% in the 2024/25 season compared to the previous one. In a period of two crops, the area of planting the cereal should have an increase of more than 300,000 hectares, according to the latest data from the National Supply Company (Conab).
The cultivation of the grain is growing in all regions of Brazil. But the highlight is the Midwest, where there are more mills of ethanol of corn already in operation, which can use sorghum as an alternative of raw material, and where the area of planting of the crop should increase 118,000 hectares in two years. Next is the Southeast, a region that should expand the cultivation by 108,000 hectares in two years, and the Northeast, with an advance of 69,000 hectares in the same period. Sorghum is a culture already used for human and animal food and, in some countries, for the production of ethanol, as in the United States. One of its characteristics is to be more resistant to water stress than corn. In the biofuel industries, the yield of sorghum is equal to that of maize for the production of ethanol and DDG (dry distillery grains). The only downside is the inability to extract oil from the sorghum. Until then there were few sorghum buyers in the country, according to Frederico Botelho, a researcher at Embrapa Corn and Sorghum.
With the construction of the plant of ethanol from Inpasa in Luis Eduardo Magalhães (BA), which is expected to start operating in this first quarter, producers in the region were encouraged to bet on sorghum. And many already have contracts to sell their harvest to the company. Throughout 2025, the company began to receive in its warehouse attached to the plant some lots of sorghum harvested in the region.