BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese researchers say they have found a way to produce a protein to feed crops with carbon monoxide, which is being hailed as an advance that could help ease the country’s dependence on large volumes of imported soy.
China is by far the world’s largest buyer of soy, importing around 100 million tonnes a year to turn it into protein-rich feed for pig and poultry farms.
But a portion of this soy can one day be substituted for synthetic protein.
The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Caas) Animal Feed Research Institute says it works with Beijing’s Shoulang Biological Technology to speed up a gas fermentation process to create a single-cell protein that could feed the animals, according to with a report published on Sunday on a website under the care of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
The team begins operating a facility in northern China’s Hebei province to transform a steel-producing gas into 5,000 tonnes of protein a year, according to state-run People’s Daily.
The protein produced was approved by the Ministry of Agriculture as animal feed, according to the report. Details of production costs were not disclosed.
At least 10 other start-ups around the world are also using synthetic biology to create animal feed using flue gases as a raw material for bacteria or other protein-rich microorganisms.
Among these is the British company Deep Branch, which aims to transform the carbon dioxide emitted by a power plant into protein for fish and birds.
Headquartered in the United States, Calysta has partnered with agricultural giant Cargill for a 200,000-ton single-cell protein production plant in Tennessee.
The Chinese efforts could be a solution to “excessive external dependence on protein for feed, one of the biggest constraints on China’s agriculture,” said state-backed tabloid Global Times.
(By Dominique Patton)
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