Objective
Stevia rebaudiana is a new promising renewable rawstuff for the southern regions of EU. The plant can be utilised as a source for the production of a natural sweetener (Food), as a source of Chlorophyll (Non-Food: Oral hygiene products, medicine), as a source for Phytosterols (Non-Food: Medicine: raw stuff for the synthesis of oral contraceptives, cholesterol suppressing medicine, antitumor activity against prostata tumors and activity against rheumatism), the sweetener can be converted in gibberellins by fermentation (Non-Food: Agrochemical), the vegetative residue can be used as fodder especially for sheeps and goats (Feed) and the stalks can be used as a source of cellulose (Non-Food: Celluloselndustry). The added value for this new crop and its green chemicals is about 50.000 ECU/ha. The cultivation of Stevia will increase the farmer income and will create employment in rural areas. By its climatic and agronomic characteristics Stevia can be cultivated in tobacco areas and can substitute partly tobacco, a crop in crisis. For the new reformed tobacco sector, Stevia can be a real alternative for the people working in this area. For Non-Food purposes the crop can be cultivated on land of the set aside scheme.
It therefore makes sense, in the economic context of the CAP, to fix as an objective the introduction of Stevia in Europe, a crop with a high added value, and which is perfectly suited to poor land in southern Europe. As an example for the potential of Stevia rebaudiana figures from artificial sweeteners are demonstrated: Worldwide about 62.000 tons of artificial sweeteners are consumed yearly. This demand can be substituted by the cultivation of about 186.000 hectars of Stevia. In the EU the yearly demand of artifical sweeteners is about 10.000 tons which can be substituted with 26.000 hectars of Stevia.
New concerns of the possible link of Aspartame to brain tumors which are increasing in the industrialised nations since mid 80`s, do urge in the spirit of consumer protection the search for a safe sweetener. The development of an alternative will need research in EU. The present project intends to carry out a significant improvement of the cultivation technique by closely associating agronomists, process technologists and construction engineers. The proposed work will reduce the level of production costs. The following aims will be set:
- to develop an optimised cultivation technique which is economically adapted to European farms, notably through mechanisation
- the development of an adapted Stevia-Harvester
- the development of a green crop dressing line to facilitate near farm extraction
The implemention of this research project would allow within some years the cultivation of 5000 to 10.000 hectars of poor soil in southern Europe.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture industrial crops fodder
- social sciences economics and business business and management employment
- engineering and technology industrial biotechnology bioprocessing technologies fermentation
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Coordinator
21819 PALOS DE LA FRONTERA (HUELVA)
Spain
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