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Better Farming Ontario Featured Articles

Better Farming Ontario magazine is published 11 times per year. After each edition is published, we share featured articles online.


A bridge between biofuel and poultry

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Two interesting new experiments – one from India, the other from Britain – may bring poultry farming and the biofuel industry together.

First to India, where The Hindu reports that Dr. John Abraham, a research scholar at the Veterinary College and Research Institute of Tamil Nadu, has invented a method for extracting biodiesel from the fat of poultry carcasses. A solvent-extraction process would extract 97 per cent of a dead bird's fat, with six birds needed to produce a litre of diesel.

Dr. Abraham says that about 4,000 birds die every day in the region, and 90 per cent of them are disposed of "under unhygienic conditions," leading to water pollution and conflict between poultry farmers and nearby residents.

The biodiesel could also be mixed with conventional diesel to produce a low-cost blend.

What to feed these little diesel-makers? How about bioethanol byproducts? The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council reports that Dr. Pete Williams of AB Agri and Dr. Emily Burton of Nottingham Trent University have developed a method for separating Yeast Protein Concentrate (YPC) from the yeasty broth left over after bioethanol production. YPC may be cheaper than conventional feeds and, according to a paper published in Food and Energy Security, is readily digested by chickens.

Dr. Burton sees the experiment as a bridge between the two sectors: "One concern with bioethanol is the perception it will compete with food crops for limited farmland. Our new work shows how the two can live side by side." BF

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