Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DEGCAE (DryGro: Efficient Growth of Crops in Arid Environments (DEGCAE))
Período documentado: 2018-06-01 hasta 2018-11-30
This land pressure will soon become a crisis. We cannot match 2025 demand levels without massive clear-cutting of rain-forest in Brazil to provide additional soy land. By 2050, there is no clear way to meet demand. It is critical that we develop animal feed protein alternatives to soy that can open up new land for production to fill this market demand without making rain-forest clear-cut a necessity.
The objective of this project was to explore the use of a new technology developed by UK firm ""DryGro"" that has the potential to solve this animal feed protein gap. DryGro that has developed a new way to efficiently grow a local, low-cost animal feed protein ingredient called lemna, using 99% less water than conventional agriculture. Using DryGro technology, this crop could potentially be grown on otherwise arid land at industrial scale. This ingredient has the potential to replace soy in animal feed markets around the globe, undercutting the soy market value chain and easing pressure on rainforest clearcut.
This project was to designed to explore this market fit further, examining the feasibility of the use of this technology to solve this critical market gap.
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1) An economic feasibility assessment, where we explored a) total potential market size, b) target customers, c) global animal feed market analysis d) competition analysis.
2) Unit economics analysis, exploring the significant cost drivers of production amongst three target countries.
3) Regulatory assessment amongst three target countries.
4) Technological feasibility assessment, including technological, commercial and regulatory risks.
5) Commercial and exploitation planning, including strategic planning for commercial development, technical development, IP strategy, and stageholder engagement through 2022.
The results of this assessment are very encouraging, and indicate that this project appears economically and technically viable. The project should be moved forward for further development and implementation.
We aim to validate this further through an application to Horizon 2020 Phase 2, allowing expansion of the technology to industrial scale.