Grass protein anyone? Kerry’s new biorefinery project ‘on the money’ with human products not far off

By Alastair Tibbs, The Kerryman

Kerry’s new biorefinery project is “on the money” according to a farming representative as the county’s flagship research campus receives stimulus for the sector.

John Brosnan, bioeconomy executive at the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS), is very excited about the potential of biorefining to provide a much-needed supplement to the incomes of future farmers.

‘Biorefinery’ is the word on many lips at MTU North Campus as a new grass biorefinery plant was given the go-ahead last week.

Led by James Gaffey, principal investigator for green biorefinery research based at MTU, this new facility will further develop technologies that convert grass into a range of valuable products, including high-quality animal feeds, bioenergy and human-grade protein.

Previous research at MTU has shown the potential for farmers to get more bang for their buck out of their grass by extracting proteins typically discarded by livestock, while still creating silage to feed them.

The refining process works by pressing freshly cut grass to extract juice, called “green juice and produce a dry “press cake”. While the juice and cake contain about half of the grass’ proteins each, trials show the cake performed similarly well to traditional silage when given to dairy cows.

However, the juice is the part that unlocks the potential for high-value products, following distillation and further processing. The protein concentrate that is produced at the end of the extensive process could potentially replace high-protein feedstocks such as soybean meal.

“Ireland has had a declining cereal sector for years,” said Mr Gaffey, “so we need to find alternative sources of concentrates.”

“There’s lots of work at the government level, promoting things like beans and lupins and faba bean, but our solution would be to looking at our grass.”

“We can actually feed cows, and we can also produce concentrate and potentially replace soybean meal with this product.”

Even higher value still is the potential of the creation of proteins suitable for human consumption. A previous project at MTU looked at the production of ‘fructo-oligosaccharides’, a carbohydrate with prebiotic health benefits, assessing its potential to improve gut health.

Furthermore, used as feed, the “press cake” has been found to produce 20pc lower emissions from cows, in terms of nitrogen and phosphate, than traditional silage. Reducing the nitrogen protein, which is often beyond what a cow needs, means that less is excreted as waste.

Mr Brosnan, who is a farmer in Castleisland alongside his role with ICOS, believes biorefining provides a big opportunity for farmers to supplement and diversify their income.

Modern challenges of farming life, which include encouraging the younger generation to take up farming and environmental targets, such as decarbonisation and biodiversity, are strongly promoted by this technology.

“How do you come up with something that helps to even out the peaks and troughs of income volatility, that attracts young people, that isn't a labour-intensive, cumbersome activity…that doesn't damage the environment, that doesn't lead to intensification?” asked Mr Brosnan.

“I think what James has hit on with his colleagues is on the money…and that's really exciting given the ability we have in this country to grow grass.”

Mr Brosnan believes the technology is “well proven” and the task for researchers and entrepreneurs is now to get the refining working at scale and develop a market for products created by the process.

“You have to make sure that you can procure the equipment at the scale you want it and make sure it's reliable, cost effective, there's support there for it,” he said.

“Second of all, the work James is doing to see what products are viably produced from it, and then what are the markets for those.”

“Once you can prove that, then you can sit in front of a group of farmers or existing cooperatives and say, listen, this is a viable opportunity now.”

“I think when you give farmers a few sound bites, that we're going to take grass and take protein from it, farmers may at first feel threatened by it… but when you sit down with farmers and explain fully what this is about, I do think that they would view it as an opportunity rather than a threat.”

Mr Brosnan is optimistic these parts of the puzzle can be solved in the next few years, and a business proposition can be put to farmers.

Denmark sets a clear example to follow for Mr Brosnan, who highlights the bio-industrial parks the country now boasts as a European leader in the sector.

GreenLab Skive, located in Skive, Denmark, houses an anabolic digestor (AD) plants, a grass protein plant, a biochar plant, wind turbines and gas network connection all on the same site.

“Centralisation of these smaller energy projects in the one place provides significant benefits in terms of efficiency of scale,” said Mr Brosnan.

“It's hugely scaled, and the by-product of one becomes the feedstock of another…if you have surplus heat, instead of wasting it, that could be piped across an industrial park to somebody else who'll use it, if you're producing biochar, and you want to heat your AD plant, you just stick a pipe across, rather than wasting that heat...it makes huge sense.”