@defugo
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Is it possible to grow crops for food, textiles, and energy all in the same field? We have found that it is very much possible. Through our super plant, we can start using our agricultural land to restore our soil while producing key materials for our communities. During the UN climate conference COP27, Defugo Technologies participated in the COP27 Climate Hub, an on-site and digital broadcast hosted by We Don’t Have Time from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. David Coleman, Chairman of Defugo Technologies, joined the broadcast from Sharm El-Sheikh to talk about a new plant for regenerative agriculture. The focus of this Defugo & friends session was how we can reimagine our crop farming practices to capture carbon, restore soil health and produce what we need in terms of food, textiles, and energy. We believe that the best solution to this is not through new technology or innovation, but by changing what we grow in our fields. By planting fast-growing, multi-purpose crops as a part of a crop rotation between conventional crop harvests, we can reduce the use of pesticides while improving biodiversity and yields. By using plants that have deep root systems, we can also draw carbon into the soil, reducing carbon in the atmosphere and minimizing the need for fertilizers. Is this a pipe dream? We don’t think so. Defugo, together with Sydney University, has tested a “super plant” that has all these properties, and when put through our Universal Processing Plant it can give us materials to produce food, diesel, and textiles. Our goal is to implement this so that farmers increase their profits while reaching our sustainable development goals regarding hunger and climate change. If we implement this today, we can make a huge difference. “With converting just 1% of Australia’s landmass to this biomass, we’d be completely net zero. There are cattle stations that actually own more land than this” said David Coleman. https://youtu.be/8sZctpxYYGI?t=14730 Rewatch the COP27 Climate Hub anytime on We Don’t Have Time Play.
During the UN climate conference COP27, Defugo Technologies participated in the COP27 Climate Hub, an on-site and digital broadcast hosted by We Don’t Have Time from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. David Coleman, Chairman at Defugo Technologies joined the broadcast from Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt to talk about decarbonizing agriculture. David went on stage in Sharm El-Sheikh to present the Universal Processing Plant (UPP) that can process every kind of biomass fully, and separate the components to optimize their use in making food or bioenergy. The plant plays an important role in tackling the problem of food waste by giving us a way to make use of wasted food instead of burning it or sending it to landfill. Tackling this problem has multi-dimensional implications as we can reduce food prices, feed more people, and contribute to the health of people in general. The plant not only processes the food waste and separates the nutrients so that they can be reused in new food products, but it can also process hard, inedible or woody parts into biomass or hydrogen that can be used for energy production. Making use of biomass that would otherwise go to landfill for energy requirements decreases the cultivation of crops that are grown to be used as energy sources, giving more space to grow food or restore forests. It’s a win-win! Global food and energy shortage and our ever-growing land use are two huge challenges for a growing population. At Defugo, we believe that our UPP can contribute to a system shift that can allow us to feed up to 50 billion people in a sustainable way, as it makes full use of each piece of food we produce and solves the paradox of burning perfectly edible crops in order to make energy. By separating the edible parts from the inedible parts, we can make both energy and food out of each crop, contributing to both the food and energy crises while preventing millions of tons of food from going to landfill We have tested our UPP on 150 different crops and biomasses from all over the world, and we have found that it can successfully process all of them. This includes every commercial crop that farmers grow in the world. "Defugo's goal is to create this generation, our generation, as the first generation since humans began farming to realistically hand on to the next generation, the Earth in a better condition than what we got it in," David said of Defugo's ambitions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLQgXSGO1KM&t=22020s Rewatch the COP27 Climate Hub anytime on We Don’t Have Time Play.
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64 w
The UPP is definitely a great way to avoid food wastage in that every component is used to its maximum capacity
Researchers at the University of Sydney, in collaboration with Defugo Technologies, have developed a new class of plant protein that are sourced from byproducts of agricultural waste and green energy programs. If used at scale, this technology can be part of the answer to how we are going to feed our growing population. The world population could exceed 9 billion by the year 2050, and large parts of the population are already malnourished and need more food. The demand for protein is therefore estimated to almost double* between 2010 and 2050, which could be a disaster for the environment considering how hard it is to sustainably produce the amount of protein we need today with current methods. The University of Sydney has partnered with Defugo Technologies to form Botanical Protein, a technology platform as part of Defugo Technologies to produce these botanical proteins that have good bioavailability, which means that they are easily digestible, nutritious, and have a pleasant taste. Besides their nutritional profile, there are several environmental advantages to these proteins. They have a low cost of production as all products are made from current agricultural waste streams. This means that the nutrients are already there, and do not have to be created in a lab or research facility. All that is needed is a recycling plant near the production facilities where most of the food waste is created. In simple words, they do not need massive infrastructure investments, which keep the cost of production low and create a food supply that is accessible. Moreover, they eliminate waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill. This is important since food that goes to landfill usually breaks down into methane, a greenhouse gas that is 84 times more potent than CO2 in the 10 years that it stays in the atmosphere. They do not need seasoning like sugar or salt, which keeps their carbon footprint lower. Fewer ingredients lead to less embedded emissions. Instead, the proteins are flavored with plant-based triglycerides, which are extracted from waste materials of oily plants like canola, hemp, kenaf, palm oil, and sunflower. These botanical proteins have the potential to keep food costs lower, produce a healthy supply of proteins, and reduce pollution and the amount of food waste that goes to landfill. They are good for people, the planet, and profits. Read more about botanical proteins: https://botanicalproteins.com/ *https://www.fao.org/3/i2373e/i2373e03.pdf
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66 w
This should be adopted on a large scale say globally, if we aim to create the meaningful impact that will create a shift towards better climate environment.
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82 w
Amazing project! This should be implemented everywhere, so much food is wasted today this is a great solution
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82 w
Fantastic innovation that address the issue of food wastage that hugely contributes to global warming from green house gases such as Methane
Food waste is a massive problem, and like any other waste, it contributes to environmental problems like waste of water, farmland underutilization and contributing to emissions in landfills. According to the National Resources Defense Council, the United States wastes an estimated 40 percent of their food. The estimate says that of the 125 to 160 billion pounds of food that goes to waste every year, much is perfectly edible and nutritious. The price tag of this waste is about $218 billion per year (1). Research from the US Department of Agriculture tells us that 12 percent of American households are food insecure (2), and a 15% reduction in food waste could provide enough sustenance to feed more than 25 million people annually (3). Defugo is a biotech company working on Zero Waste food solutions with carbon-negative, ESG-compliant, Universal Processing Plants (UPP). In an American first, Defugo is bringing Zero Waste UPPs to process apples in the USA through its partnership with the International Farming Corporation (IFC), which is a privately owned institutional investment manager at the center of the world’s food ecosystem and has deep roots in agriculture dating back to 1827. Defugo is setting up an Apple UPP in Yakima, Washington State, in the heart of American apple country, which will process all organic apple rejects from the IFC farms and packhouses, saving them from rotting in our environment or going into landfills. This UPP when completed, will have the capacity to prevent the creation of over 250,000 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere — saving the environment and the business. This partnership combines IFC’s ‘dirt on boots & technology at fingertips’ and Defugo’s ‘Waste nothing & monetize everything today’ mindsets, to show the financial and environmental benefits of recycling food. Together we will be saving 100% of what would have been wasted, turning it into healthy nutritious food and beverages, becoming a part of the solution to the food crisis and reducing food waste in America. Colocating the Defugo UPP near the fruit processing packhouses also means that the waste doesn’t need to be transported off-site, saving costs and emissions. The Defugo & IFC partnership will enable IFC to achieve an American first in Zero Waste processing, having a positive impact on seven Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs). SDG 12 focuses on Responsible Consumption and Production; SDG 9 on Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure; SDG 17 on Partnerships for the Goals; SDG 6 on Clean Water and Sanitation; SDG 13 on Climate Action; SDG 15 on Life on Land; and SDG 2 on Zero Hunger. In summary, Defugo will be feeding people, not landfills, saving emissions and contributing to the SDGs in a positive way. (1) https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-2017-report.pdf (2) https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/ (3) https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2015/09/16/usda-and-epa-join-private-sector-charitable-organizations-set
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87 w
Great collaboration! Keep up your great positive agenda of feeding people and contributing to the sdgs.
Defugo is a biotech company working on Zero Waste food solutions. Our Universal Processing Plant (UPP) recovers the natural goodness of biomaterials that are wasted in the processing of vegetables, fruits, biomass and more. By breaking down food waste into its base components, like fibres, carbohydrates and proteins, each component can be reused to its fullest extent. We enable manufacturers to enrich processed foods with the health benefits and taste that nature produces. Proteins can be used to make protein-rich plant based food products. Components that can’t be used for food can be used for fertilizers or biofuels. Our technology helps recover food to feed the growing population and it reduces emissions as our biotechnology can create food solutions primarily from food waste. During processing, current technology creates a waste stream that means operators throw away 30% of an apple, 50% of citrus, and 90% of sugarcane biomass, which is normally burnt creating even more CO2. In total, 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted which, if preserved, would be made available in the market and would play a major role in making food more affordable and available to everyone. Simply put, using Defugo technology, our customers and partners will improve both their food production processes, their yield, their profitability, and they will also decrease their carbon footprint by sending less waste to landfills. Our Chairman, David Coleman, was one of the speakers at the STHLM+50 Climate Hub in early June, where he talked about the problem and the solutions we offer. He said, "Instead of looking at the apple as just being apple juice, we can now break the apple down into various parts that go into non-dairy, that go into animal proteins as binders and can be used in a range of different products that are outside of just the scope of apple. That holistic approach has a huge impact for investors, and when investors can get behind these ideas and we can challenge the leaders that are out there to make some decisions and get away from the ‘do as I say not as I do’ kind of cycle, then we can really start to make some change in food waste." We take a different approach to food processing. We do not need energy-intensive processes like crushing and overheating, and we do not use chemicals, as our processors preserve the food in a natural way. It is obvious that we need to throw away less food, but we also need to make better use of what we throw away. Join us on this journey as we will continue talking about what we do over the coming months. Watch David Coleman in this panel discussion from the STHLM+50 Climate Hub Broadcast: https://youtu.be/WbXYEBzplqo?t=3672 ABOUT STHLM+50 CLIMATE HUB - 50 years after the very first UN Environment Conference, placing nature and poverty at the forefront of the international agenda, Stockholm welcomed the world again in June 2022. - Together with partners, We Don'tHave Time and UNDP hosted a public arena for the entire week of Stockholm+50, leading up to World Environment Day 2022. - The broadcasts reached 31 million viewers from more than 160 countries on Twitter.
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87 w
i really liked your article. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful post. https://paperio2.online
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64 w
Wonderful! what are the forces at work to make it actually pull through and are they sustainable?
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66 w
wow this sure does look like a super-solution! What is in the way to get going?
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66 w
Wow. That’s really encouraging to hear! I hope this new plant is drought resistant as well so it can be grown in drought struck areas