Research TTI Green Genetics looks ahead Loek Hermans, Chairman of Greenport Holland: ‘It’s foolish to abolish the Product Boards.’ Peter Bruinenberg, AVEBE research manager: ‘What do we want, greenhouse gases or energy-saving potatoes?’ of this: the starch industry. The man who knows all about this is Peter Bruinenberg, research manager at AVEBE. ‘Biobased economy, that is the future. Just Google that word and you’ll see that I’m right.’ AVEBE has developed into a factory that uses the entire potato : its starch, protein, skin and even its water. Bruinenberg showed in an aerial photograph that the factory site now has several production units. There is, for example, the starch production line, a starch processing unit, a water purification plant, a biomass power plant and a production line for protein. ‘What goes into this bio refinery annually, and what comes out,’ the researcher asks aloud. A second later, the answer shows on the screen. The amount of raw materials is 3 million tons of potatoes grown on 55,000 hectares. To keep the factory in potatoes 24/7, a full lorry loaded with 35 tons of potatoes arrives every 6 minutes at the chute of the big storage silos. AVEBE extracts 700,000 tons of starch from all those potatoes. The following step is that the manufacturer prepares the starch for a variety of uses such as food ingredients, raw materials for paper or textile, and animal feed. Furthermore, the manufacturer uses the potato skins and the cleaning water for “feeding” the biomass power plant. This power plant produces 8 petajoules (1015 joules) on an annual basis of which AVEBE uses 6 petajoules for its own energy supply. Two petajoules leave the power plant to be delivered to an energy company. From the 6 petajoules for the plant’s own use, 2 petajoules go to steam/boiling installations, 2.5 petajoules to the starch production line and 1.5 petajoules to the dehydration of all the starch. Improvement must come from breeding Until fairly recently, AVEBE was also taking protein out of the potatoes, Bruinenberg tells us. ‘On average, a potato contains 2% protein. That percentage is still too low for producing protein in a cost-effective way. The production unit currently produces 10 tons of protein per hour out of the stream of potatoes. That should be at least 250 tons per hour if AVEBE is to make a profit. Improvement must come from breeding.’ This is Bruinenberg’s responsibility. It is the task of the breeder to develop starch potatoes with a higher protein content. He would prefer this quality to be combined with potatoes that contain “the new starch” or pure amylopectine. Amylopectine is much sought-after because it gives starch for textile or food applications a longer storage life. From the bio-economic viewpoint, Bruinenberg underlines once again the energy-saving effects of potatoes with only amylopectine. The average starch potato contains both amylose and amylopectine. It would need a great deal of energy and be enormously damaging to the environment if we were only to remove the amylopectine from the starch. It is a difficult and almost impossible operation to develop an amylosefree starch potato through traditional breeding that also yields well and contains resistance to disease. The resulting amylosefree tubers are almost all mutants. It is because of this that, together with BASF, AVEBE started to employ genetic modification technology. The collaboration has produced the first varieties, with the Amflora being the first well-known one. The cultivation of GM varieties, however, meets with a lot of resistance from the civilian population in Europe. That’s why Bruinenberg openly asks the question: ‘What do we want, greenhouse gases or energy-saving potatoes?’ Another bio-economic focus of attention is an increase in production. During the Starch Potato Days in September, AVEBE already indicated that they would like to work with the growers and the breeders on a higher potato yield per hectare. And that the EU subsidy will be stopped soon is not the only reason, Bruinenberg explains. ‘The measure also increases the production efficiency and ensures the lowest possible environmental impact. After all, the more tons we can get from nearby, the less energy will be needed for transport.’ ● Leo Hanse Potato World 2012 • number 1 27 Pagina 26
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