Sugar technology research at Vasantdada Sugar Institute

I often remember those days when I accompanied my grandparents to our sugarcane farm and wondered how do these tall sticks of cane become those lovely sugar crystals? Who does this magic? Well, my questions were answered recently when I visited the Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI) in Pune.

I met the Director General, Shivajirao C. Deshmukh, who  introduced his team of leading scientists from all sections of VSI. They gave me an overview of what their work looked like and then it was followed up with a short visit to each department. The Institute is recognised as a centre of excellence in sugar research by the Government of India. This organisation was formed by the sugarcane cultivator’s members of co-operative sugar factories in Maharashtra, with active support from the Government of Maharashtra. It was very interesting to know that VSI conducts research for 139 sugar factories  and numerous sugarcane cultivators.

Their research areas include developing best sugarcane culture, sugar technology research, distillery research and consultancy to farmers and sugar factories on various topics related to sugarcane growing and processing. Certainly, VSI is one of the few research institutes which work closely with farmers, industry and academia.

VSI offers various education and training programmes. It is recognised as a centre for undertaking research leading to PhD degrees of various universities. The Institute is engaged with the Central Pollution Control Board for pollution abatement projects in sugar industries and alcohol treatment plants. VSI has a well-equipped distillery research laboratory, winery and brewery research laboratory. The alcohol technology department is the testing and certifying body for the distillery products. It also carries out research projects for breweries just like the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling, UK.

VSI’s current interests include, inter-alia, development of promising sugarcane varieties through biotechnology, water conserving irrigation systems, eco-friendly methods of crop production and crop protection, co-generation, pollution abatement, development of appropriate software for sugar factory and by-product units, development of by-products, development of bio-fertilisers and vermin compost for improving soil fertility and productivity. Currently, the institute has a few international research collaborations, and it remains open to forging new ones in the future.

There are all sorts of areas where there could be potential for UK-India research collaboration. For instance, beet sugar technology and beet ethanol technology is well established in the UK. VSI has explored beet sugar technology for Indian sugar factories, as a lean period product, but this experiment faced many technical challenges like adaptation of beet production to Indian climatic conditions and effective processing in existing factories. VSI would be open for taking this exercise further with the help of UK expertise. And, in a sign of the importance of this kind of research, the Energy-water-food nexus has been identified as one the thematic challenges for India, under the Newton fund.

All through my return journey through the lush green sugarcane farms surrounding VSI, I was thinking of the tremendous scope for research and development which the sugar industry poses.