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RESEARCHERS WANT TO TURN CROP RESIDUE INTO FARM REVENUE

A researcher says some specialty crop waste might provide additional farm revenue in the future.

Paul Fowler with the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is conducting a three-year study looking for added value in specialty crop residuals that could be used as natural ingredients for food additives, cosmetics, and industrial applications.

Fowler tells Brownfield one of the natural chemicals his team is extracting from potato peels is an antioxidant called chlorogenic acid.  “In its purest form, we’ve seen selling values in the range of three-thousand to ten-thousand dollars per kilo, so its really a substantial value-added market.”

Fowler says chlorogenic acid is commonly extracted from coffee beans in China and India, and imported by the U.S.

He says there are about a dozen other vegetable residuals being studied.  “Carrots and beets.  We’re looking at those from the perspective of the pigments that are contained there, not necessarily from an antioxidant perspective but from the point of view of naturally occurring colors that can feed into food coloring markets but also in the cosmetics domain.”

Fowler says farmers could substantially increase revenue if they find low-cost ways to capture the natural chemicals locally.

He says about 15% of the potato crop is residual waste.