Carl Smorenburg Bales

Biobased Economy In South Africa is at its Infancy (Image: Carl Smorenburg).

When USDA released the first-ever Economic Impact Analysis of the U.S. Biobased Products Industry last year, we were thrilled to see what a positive impact this sector was having on our economy, and this updated analysis shows that the sector is not just holding strong, but growing.

– Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at reports release this week in Washington, D.C.

A new report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has revealed the precise amount that the bio-based products industry contributed to the US economy and how many jobs it sustains.

Just how much are biobased products worth (to the US economy)?

http://www.biobasedworldnews.com reports:

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Biorefineries Give Local Farmers Opportunities for Additional Income

Farmer Bruce Nelson and a representative from biofuels company POET-DSM stand between square and round bales of corn stover stock piled outside of POET-DSM’s PROJECT LIBERTY cellulosic ethanol biorefinery. Selling the corn plant residue after their corn harvest has generated a new revenue stream for many farmers, including Bruce. Watch a video segment about Bruce’s story at the beginning of the film “Bioenergy: America’s Energy Future.”

In Africa we recommend to use the cobs, only or indigenous energy crops. We also have smaller biorefinery solutions, like the µ-Biorefinery or the GreenEnergyPark, which have the same economic outcome as in the USA: Additional income for the farmers.

The article below appeared on Energy.gov (US Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy):

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(Image Credit:  Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)

A new project that aims to provide farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa with stress-tolerant maize varieties has been launched to help the region boost food security. The Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project will apply conventional breeding techniques to develop maize varieties and hybrids capable of resisting environmental shocks, including drought, low soil fertility, heat, pests and diseases.

• The project aims to increase maize productivity by 30-50 per cent
• It will benefit 5.5 million smallholders in 12 African nations
• An expert calls for more improved maize varieties to help more nations

Editor’s Note: Although the maize plants always makes a cob, even during drought, the good news is that STMA will create stable biomass supply chains (see Cob.Trade or Biomass.Market), as “Collecting Cobs Makes Good Business Sense.”

Twelve Sub-Sahara Africa countries — Benin, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe — will benefit from the project, which also seeks to enhance sustainable maize research and development systems in the focus countries.

“The project also seeks to increase commercialisation of improved multiple stress-tolerant maize varieties with gender-preferred traits.”

Tsedeke Abate, CIMMYT

The STMA project to be run by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development. The four-year project (2016-2019) launched last month (March 21) is expected to increase maize productivity by 30-50 per cent and provide 5.5 million smallholder farmers with improved maize varieties.

The project follows the success of a drought-tolerant maize project that was implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa by CIMMYT and the IITA from 2007 to 2015. It helped improve food and income security of smallholder farmers by developing and disseminating more than 250 drought-tolerant, well-adapted maize varieties, says CIMMYT.  According to CIMMYT, more than 35 million hectares of cultivated maize in Sub-Saharan Africa rely on the rain, thus making environmental shocks such as drought have major impact on smallholders whose livelihoods depend on the crop.

Tsedeke Abate, the STMA project leader at CIMMYT, says the project seeks to provide innovative breeding tools and techniques applied for increasing the rate of genetic gain in the maize breeding pipeline. “The project also seeks to increase commercialisation of improved multiple stress-tolerant maize varieties with gender-preferred traits by the Sub-Saharan African seed sector and increase seed availability and farmer uptake of stress-tolerant maize varieties,” Abate tells SciDev.Net. According to Abate, the project will work with private and public seed companies and national agricultural research systems to facilitate uptake of the new technologies.

Rinn Self, a programme officer at the US-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, says maize production is increasingly threatened by climate change and worsening environmental conditions, including droughts, floods and poor soil. “The improved seeds in the hands of both smallholder farmers, many of whom are women, as well as small and medium enterprises, which produce, market and sell seeds and other inputs, play a critical part in the agricultural value chain,” Self notes.

Aboubacar Toure, programme officer, crop improvement and variety adoption at Kenya-headquartered Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), calls for incentives to help plant breeders develop new technologies and produce seed varieties that can adapt to climate change. Toure also urges African governments to scale up the improved technology so that many farmers can be reached with high-yielding cereal varieties.

Source: www.scidev.net

Related Articles:

• Smallholders gaining from nitrogen-efficient maize
• Drought-tolerant maize improves yields in 13 countries
• Drought-tolerant maize ‘could be available by 2017’

Food security: Facts and figures – SciDev.Net

Food security is deeply connected to other development challenges and poor health. Michael Hoevel traces the links.

See on www.scidev.net

from Scoop.it - Biorenewable Chemicals & Energy

Record temperatures set to reach tropics first

Up to five billion people may be living with never-experienced-before temperatures by 2050, a study finds.

See on www.scidev.net

from  Scoop.it - Biorenewable Chemicals & Energy

What can ‘frugal innovation’ do for development?

The idea of finding simple, robust ways to tackle the world’s problems is growing in popularity ..”

See on www.scidev.net, via  Scoop.it – Biorenewable Chemicals & Energy

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Furfural CHP

Biomass is the simplest form of (sun) energy storage. Besides the use of its sugars or grains in our food chain, the biomass accumulated at agri-proce…

See on www.dalinyebo.com

Biomass Furfural

Biomass suitable for furfural production

See on www.dalinyebo.com

via Scoop.it – Biorenewable Chemicals & Energy

Potential to produce bio-plastics from poplar trees

Bio-based products such as bio-plastics are used in the cosmetics industry by a number of leading brands in their packaging ..

See on www.cosmeticsdesign-europe.com

via  Scoop.it – Biorenewable Chemicals & Energy