Biofuels 'can help' the livestock sector

The biofuel industry could have benefits for the livestock industry sector, Yorkshire farmers were told by John Pinkney, technical director of Ensus, the company which is building the region’s first biofuel plant at Wilton on Teeside.

Mr Pinkney told an NFU North East regional livestock board open meeting at Thirsk that it was a little publicised fact that a bi-product of biofuel production was a high protein animal feed.

He said that in the process of producing ethanol from wheat, just one-third, namely the sugars and starches, was made into ethanol. Another third produced carbon dioxide, which was captured and used as a co-product and the remaining third was converted into Distilled Dried Grains plus Solubles (DDGS), which would be sold as animal feed.

He said the plant was on course to open in early 2009 and would use 1 million tonnes of wheat a year and would produce 400 million litres of ethanol and 450,000 tonnes of DDGS annually. This should be available to farmers from April 2009.

Although the majority of the product would be dried, he said that some would be available undried direct from the plant to farmers in the locality.

Mr Pinkney said although DDGS could be used by the energy industry, his company was committed to making it available to the livestock sector.

He also said the availability of DDGS would reduce the amount of soya which needed to be imported and so would relieve some of the pressure on land elsewhere, making more available for biofuels.

Nutritionist Mick Hazzeline said when the starch and sugar had been removed from the wheat to produce DDGS, it left a product with approximately 31 per cent protein, 9 per cent oil, 27 per cent of very digestible protein and 1.05 per cent phosphorus, which would be able to replace soya in some diets.

It was thought the price of DDGS would be around £185 - £225 per tonne and, although it would depend on relative commodity prices, it was always likely to fall between the price of wheat and soya.

Source: Farmers Guardian