Grass4Value will connect a number of bioeconomy sites
Life
Pictured: Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon; Minister of State with special responsibility for Research and Development Noel Grealish; Prof James Gaffey, CircBio; Prof Hugh McGlynn, MTU; Prof Kevin O’Connor, BiOrbic Research Centre; and Prof Peadar Lawlor, Teagasc
Munster Technological University (MTU) has secured €3 million in funding from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) to lead a major research demonstration project aimed at transforming Ireland’s grassland sector. The Grass4Value project will advance cutting-edge green biorefinery technologies, building on the recent launch of MTU’s pilot biorefinery facility in Kerry.
Grass4Value will connect a number of new Irish demonstration and pilot-scale bioeconomy sites, including MTU’s pilot biorefinery, Ireland’s first demonstration-scale green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion facility at Farm Zero C in Cork, and the new National Bioeconomy Pilot Plant at Lisheen in Tipperary, to develop innovative processes for converting grass and legumes into high-value products.
The project aims to develop new value chains which can support more competitive and resilient grassland farming in Ireland. In addition to producing a press cake fibre feed for cows, the project will produce and test sustainable grass-based protein concentrate alternatives to imported soy, which will be evaluated in calf, ewe and pig trials. The project will also scale technologies to support the development of higher value functional protein ingredients from grass-based feedstocks towards human food products, further enhancing the value of grass. Grass4Value will also advance downstream technologies, including anaerobic digestion and precision fermentation to target the production of feed and food ingredients, energy and fertilisers in a circular process.
Prof James Gaffey, project coordinator and co-director of CircBio at MTU, said: “This DAFM Grass4Value project builds on the recent awarding by DAFM of €3.1 million in infrastructure to MTU and UCD to develop a grass biorefinery and anaerobic digestion demonstration facility at Farm Zero C in Cork in collaboration with Carbery Group. The project will evaluate and demonstrate new ways in which grass biorefining can help to make farming in Ireland more resilient and robust particularly in light of current market volatility and other environmental and socio-economic pressures.”
Prof Kevin O’Connor, University College Dublin and director of the BiOrbic Research Centre, said: “This collaboration led by MTU brings together a number of BiOrbic researchers with complementary expertise to work together to develop technologies that can accelerate innovation in green biorefining. The integration of two deep demonstration sites, Shinagh farm Bandon Co. Cork and Lisheen, Co. Tipperary, into the project demonstrates the vision and ambition of the project to test at scale and develop real world solutions using Ireland’s most abundant natural resource.”
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