This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Growing leys—grass and clover—is nothing new in Swedish agriculture. But in the arable farming regions dominated by cereal production, leys are less common.
One reason is that there needs to be a market for what is harvested. This was one of the starting points when researchers at Chalmers began exploring the potential of green biorefineries, where grass and clover can be processed into several different products. The findings are published in the journal GCB Bioenergy.
"From a cultivation and soil perspective, introducing grass and clover leys into a crop rotation dominated by cereals has a range of positive effects on both the soil and the environment. Farmers are well aware that growing grass and clover improves soil quality, but the challenge is finding a market for this biomass resource," says Christel Cederberg, professor of sustainable agricultural systems at Chalmers. One opportunity became apparent when Danish researchers began extracting protein from fresh grass in pilot facilities.
"When we heard that Danish researchers had begun extracting protein from fresh grass in pilot plants and producing a protein feed that could replace imported feed, we saw another major advantage: by biorefining the protein from leys, we could reduce dependence on soy protein, which is associated with a number of environmental problems," says Göran Berndes, professor of biomass and land use at Chalmers. "It was quite natural for us to pursue this opportunity, as it is in line with our previous research into ways of developing the production and processing of biomass to provide a wider range of bio-based products while at the same time mitigating the negative environmental impacts of agriculture," he continues. Cederberg and Berndes work at the Division of Physical Resource Theory, Department of Environmental and Energy Sciences at Chalmers University of Technology.
In a green biorefinery, freshly harvested grass and clover are pressed and the protein is separated. The protein can be used as animal feed, thereby replacing some of the soy imported into Europe. Cederberg points to several potential environmental benefits of such a shift: "If we can replace soy with grass protein, there are a number of environmental benefits.
Particularly important are substantially reduced negative impacts from pesticides, more circular nutrient systems, maintained soil fertility and better conditions for biodiversity in agricultural landscapes." But protein is only one component of the biomass. The refining process also produces large quantities of fiber-rich residual streams that can be used in several ways. "So far, the byproducts have mainly been used to produce biogas, but we see many additional possibilities, including biochar, textiles and even carbon capture, where the captured CO₂ can either be stored permanently underground or used as an industrial feedstock instead of fossil carbon dioxide," says Berndes.
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