€3 million in funding awarded for grass bio-refinery activation across Ireland
For more than a decade, Prof. James Gaffey (MTU and BiOrbic) has been at the forefront of grass biorefinery research in Ireland, helping to shape a vision for how the country’s most abundant natural resource, grass, can deliver new economic and environmental opportunities for farmers and rural communities.
The Grass4Value project, jointly led by researchers from BiOrbic Profs. James Gaffey (MTU), Kevin O’Connor (UCD) and Vincent O’Flaherty (University of Galway) and in collaboration with Carbery (West Cork) and their demonstration farm (Shinagh Estates), has secured €3 million in funding from The Department of Agriculture, Food & Marine, to take this vision a major step forward.
Caption: Project partners Prof James Gaffey, CircBio; Prof Hugh McGlynn, MTU; Prof Kevin O’Connor, BiOrbic Research Ireland Centre for Bioeconomy; and Prof Peadar Lawlor, Teagasc.
The project will fund research using the first on-farm integrated grass biorefining and anaerobic digestion (AD) demonstration and pilot-scale facility. Grass4Value will evaluate and demonstrate innovative approaches to grass biorefining aiming to activate and scale up Ireland’s bioeconomy.
Grass4Value will link biorefinery sites across the country, including MTU’s pilot biorefinery, the Farm Zero C green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion demonstration facility at Shinagh Farm in West Cork, and the National Biorefinery Pilot Plant (NBPP) in Lisheen, Co. Tipperary. By extracting additional value from grass, grass biorefinery aims to create new revenue streams for farmers while reducing reliance on volatile international markets.
Speaking on the funding win, BiOrbic Director Prof. Kevin O’Connor has said
“BiOrbic is delighted to see our researchers collaborating with farmers and industry on cutting-edge projects that make use of the critical bioeconomy infrastructure we have worked hard to secure funding for. Grass4Value is an excellent example of BiOrbic research helping to scale the bioeconomy.”
Other key project partners include Prof. Tommy Boland (UCD), Prof. David Styles (UG), Prof. Peader Lawlor (Teagasc), and Dr. Patrick Quille, Dr. Helena McMahon, Dr. Joanna Tierney, and Dr. Joanna Przyborksa (MTU), bringing together expertise across agriculture, sustainability and applied research.
