Now a days there is increasing interest among researcher and scientists to convert agriculture products to value added products. For example, agriculture by-products are used as substrates for Solid state fermentation to produce nutrients enriched feed for animals and also these by-products are used for producing various enzymes to which is used industrially. But the value addition of these by-products add extra cost to the final produce. What is your view in the above context.
Very good question.Best example is the conversion of farm residue into compost , serving two ends meet , called development of wealth from waste..But you need some effective bio-enhancers..
The conception of converting by-products to value-added products is of course correct, considering the environmental pollution and resource limitation. However, when facing a particular by-product, whether the conversion is economic greatly depends on the technology. For some by-products, the conversion is very cheap and low cost, such as the conversion of livestock manure and crop residues to organic fertilizer. However, for some others, the conversion may be economically infeasible, because the related technique is not available presently. So, researchers around the world are striving to develop novel techniques to reduce the cost.
Dear Qing Yao Sir, can you please site some example of your area/province where you have found this economically feasible.
Taking as example, the most feasible conversion is from livestock manure and straw to organic fertilizer. This conversion is very popular and manupilated by companies throughout China. More frequenctly, the resultant organic fertilizer is further added with some beneficial microbes for better crop performence.
If you exclude manure, the cellulosic matter can be biologically converted into protein that can be used to replace fish meal, or soy bean mean in animal feed. The Managed Ecosystem Fermentation process uses a multi-species ecosystem that works with a non-homogenous, non-sterile, feedstock under non-sterile conditions. The process takes approximately 8 hours, runs at 40 C, at near atmospheric pressure. Attached is a paper describing the process and and its economics.
The results from the pilot plant can now available at:
www.integratedbiochem.com/papers
Food Waste: A source Of Industrial Chemicals
There are many food processing wastes (I prefer the term co-products.) that can be used for livestock feed or converted through fermentation to energy or value-added products. For example, byproducts from fermentation to make beer, wine or spirits or fuel ethanol have high feed value for ruminants and in some cases non-ruminants. Many processing byproducts such as almond hulls, citrus pulp, wheat milling discards, etc. are used extensively in livestock feeds. If the product are of such volume to make transportation affordable, then they are valuable products. I work with a non-profit that distributes brewers grains to farmers and these are very good feeds at very affordable prices.
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