BDC wins two new projects to showcase the latest farming innovations
We have been awarded two new projects as part of fifty successful innovative projects that have been announced from four key competitions in the latest Farming Innovation Programme milestones under the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Farming Innovation Programme.
Debs Rathbone, BioScience Innovation Team Manager at the Biorenewables Development Centre said:
We are looking forward to working on these two new projects with Bash Farm and D A Platt as it will allow us to support key issues that farmers across the country are facing.
Feasibility study looking into the opportunities available through controlled environment agriculture integrated with anaerobic digestion outputs
This project will investigate the feasibility of a hybrid farming system that combines controlled environmental agriculture (CEA) technology with the outputs from an anaerobic digestion (AD) facility. CEA integrated with AD offers a more efficient system, guaranteeing sustainable food/product security, optimal growing conditions allowing for all year-round harvest, and reduction in water and land use. The system could provide a supply of healthy and nutritious food/products that minimises the miles involved in its distribution. This creates a circular approach that offers a closed-loop system in which resources are not wasted and have added value. This creates a circular approach that offers a closed-loop system in which resources are not wasted and have added value.
Energy crop transformation
This project has the aim of transforming the status of Miscanthus giganteus from an herbaceous perennial energy crop to a source of multi use feedstock for a wide range of sectors such as packaging, food additives, and construction. We will work with Bash Farms to assess the potential for the development of an on farm value adding process to improve the profitability of Miscanthus through valorising several feedstocks derived from its biomass.
Bash Farms has already identified several key process factors and the work with us will focus on optimising their interrelationships. It is the intention to then factor these results into a techno economic assessment of the feasibility of establishing an on farm Miscanthus biomass processing plant and to scope out the impact of its operations on the sustainability, environmental impact, and carbon footprint of the whole farm.
Bash Farms Managing Director and Project Leader Hugh Massingberd-Mundy commented:
We view this project as the first step on a journey of fundamental change for our farming business. We're very excited by the opportunity this initial study gives us to develop this process and to expand the range of opportunities it can give us and the wider farming community.
Let's work together
We have worked on 1,500 bio-based projects to date
We have several ways to work with us, including business advisory programmes and self-funded commercial options. We even have the option for you to hire our state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and office space.
