Project dates: 05/01/2016 - 17/07/2024
Australian agriculture must continually adapt to remain competitive in an environment of rising production costs, climate variability, pests and disease, compliance costs, and changing global patterns of production and consumption. One of the key pathways to a profitable future for Australian agriculture is to create biorefineries which generate higher value bioproducts from agricultural primary products, off-specification primary products, and low value or waste by-products. The emerging global bioeconomy is creating new market opportunities for agricultural producers while underpinning the viability of existing crop products and supply chains.
This project will engage Australia’s leading researchers in this field to develop the technologies needed to convert Australian agricultural and forestry feedstocks into new value-added animal feeds, chemicals, and advanced fuels. In addition, the project will build value chain knowledge and the human and organisational capacity essential to capture future biorefinery opportunities for Australian agriculture.
The project will establish profitable bioproduct opportunities for Australian primary producers and other participants in the sugar, cotton, forestry, and animal feed industries, while creating opportunities for those same industries to reduce input costs, such as through lower cost animal feeds and fuels.
The development of technologies, knowledge, and capacity to increase revenue from existing agricultural, forestry, and animal industries with rapid paths to market will deliver increased productivity and profitability for primary producers and hence contribute to the objectives of this program.
The Biorefineries for Profit Phase 1 project concluded in March 2019 and Phase 2 of the project was initiated in June 2019. Phase 2 of the project will build upon the knowledge and intellectual property generated through the production of new feed ingredients for feeding trials, scale-up manufacturing and feeding trials of novel probiotics products, and development and demonstration of the production of an industrial chemical (5-chloromethylfurfural) from cotton gin trash.
The Biorefineries for Profit project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture through the Rural R&D for Profit Program.
