Beyond the Food vs Fuel Debate: Designing a Sustainable CBG Ecosystem
The policies – SATAT, CFA, and priority sector lending by banks, have catalysed rapid growth in CBG capacity. However, interest in NG-based CBG generation needs to be protected through policy shield.
April 13, 2026. By News Bureau
India accelerates its push toward clean fuels under the Compressed Biogas (CBG) mission, Amongst the many bio feedstocks, Napier grass, also known as elephant grass, is emerging as a promising feedstock attributing to its strengths like perennial supply and high yield per unit of land area, homogeneity in nature leading to lesser variation not only in biogas yield but also the quality of NG- based digestate. With its high biomass yield and ability to grow on degraded or non-prime land (which appears to be in non-practice), it appears to offer a win-win pathway on renewable energy production without directly displacing food crops. Even when cultivated on non-prime land, Napier grass requires water, fertilisers, labour and logistical support.
In regions already facing water stress or labour shortages, diverting these resources to energy crops could indirectly strain food production systems. Without careful zoning and planning; energy crop expansion may create unintended ripple effects across local agricultural economies.
Since early 1990s, India’s urban expansion has dramatically reshaped land use. Based on the latest Land Use Statistics, India’s area under non-agricultural uses has continued to grow. For the agricultural year 2023–24, land classified as non-agricultural uses stood at about 28.55 million hectares (up from 26.9 million hectares in 2021–22), reflecting ongoing urban and infrastructure expansion. At the same time, net sown area in 2023–24 is reported at roughly 138.99–140.7 million hectares, a significant decline below past levels of 143 million hectares in the 1990s.
The statistics shows that there is net dual impact by reduced area under sown plus increase in non-agriculture area. The trend of increasing non-agricultural land and pressure on arable land persists, underscoring challenges for agriculture and food security. Alarmingly, this shift is concentrated in agriculturally productive states such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, as well as expanding urban regions like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai. It is clear, under the current situation that India’s productive soil base will continue to erode irreversibly.
Citing the national food-grain yield (2.8-3.0 tons/ha), about 5.0 to 5.4 million tons of food-grain loss every year is being faced by India. This loss equals ~2 percent of India’s annual food-grain production (≈ 330 million tons). It is sufficient to feed 20–25 million people per year, assuming ~200–220 kg per capita annual grain requirement. Since the lost land is concentrated in high-productivity states (Punjab, Haryana, western UP), the loss could be closer to 6–7 million tons every year, as the yield in these regions often exceed 4 ton/ha for rice–wheat systems. This gap would further widen over the time as the population continues to migrate to urban set-ups and to meet the developmental infrastructure necessities. Urban extension is steadily consuming fertile farmland, raising concerns over constrained food-grain growth and long-term food security. India must pursue smarter land-use planning to balance development with food security and sustainability.
However there is a dividend of urbanisation with respect to organic waste generation. To an estimate, India generates about 62 million tons/year of Municipal solid waste (MSW), of which approximately 50 percent (~ 30 million ton/year) is organic fraction-a rich source of methane generation. Organic fraction of MSW (OFMSW) can be diverted in segregated form to replace/compensate NG as the specific methane yield of NG and lies more or less in the same range, NG can be compensated with OFMSW from vegetable markets, food and fruit processing.
The quite but growing concern might prevail among the CBG producer from Napier grass about its vulnerability to get caught into food versus energy debate in future. The reason behind could be –fertile land getting diverted for Napier grass cultivation. Also under the situation of rapid urbanisation and expansion of industries, surface transportation infrastructure; the fertile land is shrinking year by year.
To safeguard the interest of NG-based CBG producers and aspirants, appropriate policy cover is need of the sector. On the basis of the insights gathered from CBG stakeholder consultation across states in India, a sort of equilibrium needs to be maintained between uses of fertile land for energy generation versus food/feed generation.
The policies – SATAT, Central Finance Assistance (CFA), and priority sector lending by banks, have catalysed rapid growth in CBG capacity. However, interest in NG-based CBG generation needs to be protected through policy shield. Policies must ensure that feedstock promotion strategies do not unintentionally affect food security, livestock feed availability or rural water resources. Cross-sector coordination among ministries and state departments would further scale CBG targets in the coming years.
A thoughtful zoning policies that earmark degraded or marginal lands exclusively for energy crop cultivation for at least 15-20 years, would benefit the sector. This would reduce the risk of conflict between food and fuel production while ensuring that unused or underutilised lands are productively employed. Further, land lease support or targeted subsidies could reduce operational risks for developers and make projects more financially viable without encouraging conversion of prime farmland. The success of NG-fed CBG plants depends on seamless coordination between agriculture, energy and environmental governance systems.
Strategic diversion and scientific processing of segregated OFMSW can therefore contribute meaningfully to energy security, waste management efficiency, and greenhouse gas mitigation.
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