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ECLAIR
EUR 16952: Scientific Achievements of the ECLAIR Programme |
Background
A particular aim of the earlier first framework
Biotechnology Action programme BAP, and Biomolecular Engineering Programme BEP,
was the promotion of the biomolecular science base in Europe. It was evident
from these programmes that world class expertise in molecular biology was to be
found in a number of academic laboratories in different Member States. The
ECLAIR programme was instrumental in attracting this expertise into the projects
for specific industrial applications. This unique type of European funded
cooperation enabled both SMEs and large companies, working in collaboration with
leading academics, to advance their competitiveness in their selected strategic
areas through the development of new products and processes emanating from the
programme. Furthermore, EU sponsored collaborations between industry and the
European agro-industrial science base were established for the first time and
these linkages and networks have been further enhanced and developed in the
subsequent framework programmes AIR and FAIR.
Programme content
The diverse range of projects found in the
ECLAIR programme necessitated their grouping into the following areas:
The main results, of relevance to the non-food sector are described below in a general manner. A summary of the project results as supplied by the coordinator makes up the content of the book., which can be obtained from the FAIR office of DG XII, or through the usual national outlets for EU publications.
Crops and trees for non-food uses
The vast majority of
agricultural output enters the food chain, but recent agricultural policy
changes and environmental and consumer concerns have given increasing importance
to the development of non-food uses of agricultural products. The net outcome of
research here is the development of new industrial products based on renewable
raw materials. The R&D investment time-scale for the introduction of a new
product on the other hand is usually very long, and can be up to 20 years or
more. This implies that applied projects such as these should be based on
industrially significant areas of impact, sound foresight, and strategic
planning over commensurate time-scales. Not all projects concerned with non-food
explorations met these criteria, coming as they did from a science push as
opposed to a market pull. Nevertheless, significant progress was made in a
number of important crops and processes towards the development of new materials
from agricultural products, especially in those projects which had a strong
industrial end-user participation. Fifteen ECLAIR projects were directly
concerned with the development of agricultural products for non-food uses and
they can be distributed over three distinct lines of interest.
Production of Oleochemicals
Three projects here were concerned
with the screening of new and traditional plant oils and their derivatives for
industrial uses. Results in these projects indicated promising results for new
oilseed crops such as Crambe and Coriander. High oleic, and erucic acid, strains
of Rapeseed and Sunflower were developed while other speciality oilcrops
investigated such as Meadowfoam and Euphorbia showed promise but would still
need :~ further development to become viable market crops. A range of different
end products were developed for industry from the specific fatty acids, methyl
esters, and glycerol by-products, which included new biodegradable detergents,
paints, coatings and lubricants. Another project looked at improving the
de-hulling of oilseeds which is a major process bottleneck in the extraction of
the oils.
Lignocellulosic material for fibres, composites and chemicals.
A
project here looked at the development of a novel alcohol fermentation process
from cellulosic and hemicellulosic fractions of crop by-products such as straw.
Two projects were concerned with the use of new sources of pulp and annual
fibres for specific 1 applications in the paper and car body industries. Another
investigated the use of new microbial strains for environmentally cleaner
enzymatic pulping and bleaching of paper p pulp. Two projects were concerned
with improving tree genetics/ where the control and manipulation of lignin
production, and the genetic screening and cloning of European hardwoods were
investigated respectively. Finally/ one project was concerned with new machinery
for short rotation forestry harvesting.
Carbohydrates from crops and wastes into chemicals and biopolymers.
Concerning starch and other plant carbohydrates the production of non-toxic
galacturonic acid detergents extracted from the plant cell wall carbohydrates of
agroindustrial wastes such as wheat bran was investigated. The large biorefinery
project looked at whole crop biorefining of all fractions but particularly at
the extraction of usable fractions of starch, and cellulose, for the food and
chemical industries. Finally a h; microbial process using starch feedstocks for
the production of the speciality flavour ingredient, rhamnose/ was developed.
Another project concentrated on the cloning of 1: the poly-hydroxyalkanoate
genes into oil crops and other microbial vectors to find ways of making
biodegradable plastics more cost competitive.
Several of the above non-food projects involved field trials of the crops/ and pilot processing of new products. Others involved laboratory and pilot development of chemical and biochemical conversion processes. Many patents and licensing agreements have arisen/ and it is clear that these projects have had a strategic significance in the drive to extract bulk and fine chemicals and polymers from renewable biological material. Projects such as these need to have a closer involvement of the end-user industries so that a clearer focus is imposed on all the project participants in the production and processing chain. It is only when definite markets are identified and targeted/ will research aimed at replacing existing chemical products or processes with others/ become truly viable.
These projects were driven in the main by the positive environmental benefits of renewable raw materials such as their biodegradability/ biocompatibility/ and their contribution to an equilibrated carbon dioxide balance. Industry played an active role in these projects being well aware of increasing environmental legislation and of lesser importance, though a clear marker for the future/ the possibility of dwindling fossil fuel stocks as a raw material. While the technical work carried out here was excellent/ the development of this sector has not been helped by the lack of a solid European legislative agricultural and taxation framework which could promote and aid the use of industrial crops.
Crop adaptation and food processing
The fitness of European
agricultural products for food and non-food processing will become increasingly
critical for the competitiveness of European agriculture. The ECLAIR programme
undertook RTD to improve the understanding of the material properties of crop
products, to adapt processing technologies to increase efficiency, and to
generate new products. These projects have generated significant new knowledge
on the functionality of starch crops such as wheat, maize, potatoes, and a whole
range of oilseeds, proteins, and fibre crops. They have also generated and
consolidated extensive new European networks of industries involving breeding
companies and food/feed processors, and academic and research institutes, which
are still operational.
The great majority of agricultural produce is used for food, drink and animal feed, after industrial processing, and a small proportion is industrially processed for non food uses. Competitive advantage is to be gained by the grower/ processor chain through improved product quality and efficiency of production. One third of the ECLAIR projects were concerned with achieving a greater quality or efficiency through better adaptation of the crop to the process, or vice versa.
Adaptation of food crops for processing
Five ECLAIR projects
were aimed at the improvement of the industrial value of wheat, chickpea, maize,
peas, potatoes. The general strategy was:
Participants included the key elements of the production and processing chains, namely the breeders, the farmers, and the processors. Although end-users could have been more predominant, the projects themselves have generated significant new knowledge on the functionality of traditional European food crops which are considered to be useful for the longer term development of products.
ECLAIR was the first European programme to institutionalise the production and processing chain concept by merging the needs of the industrial breeding companies and food/feed processors with the huge European knowledge base of academic researchers. For example the two projects on peas and wheat were particularly successful in developing and managing large European networks between the many laboratories involved in these sectors and their results have the cause of great industrial interest.
Food Processing Technologies
Five projects in the ECLAIR
Programme were concerned with new process technologies as applied to the food
and drinks sectors and particularly in relation to the application of
biotechnology.
Animal health and agricultural inputs
One important objective
in this sector was the application of molecular biological techniques to produce
new vaccines. Two projects were specifically concerned with brucellosis and with
gastro-intestinal virus vaccines and diagnostics. Two projects looked at
upgrading biological waste streams into improved animal feedstuffs, one dealt
with inoculating silage waste to produce a superior animal feed product, the
other concerned solid state fermentation of sugar beet pulp into pig feed
inoculated with specific probiotic strains. A further project looked at the
production harvesting and application of seaweeds as a renewable agricultural
fertiliser.
Biological pest control
The continued reduction of chemical
inputs to agriculture is possible through the development of biological
alternatives, which, in the long term, could play a much greater part in pest
control and reduce the need for chemical control agents. The ECLAIR programme
supported significant initiatives in the development of such alternatives.
European companies, many of them SMEs, have shown that they are willing and able
to coordinate international effort to achieve this objective. Some common
features of the ECLAIR biocontrol projects were that the numbers of participants
were small and the projects clearly focused, with strong industrial input by the
management. The projects in this sector successfully met most of their
scientific and industrial objectives.
The reduction of potentially harmful inputs to agriculture is one of the clear objectives of the ECLAIR programme. Although the adverse environmental impact of agrochemicals has been reduced by the development of less persistent compounds, and stricter controls on use, the high specificity and low persistence in the field, and in products, of biological methods, makes them more attractive to end users and consumers.
Two approaches to the reduction of chemical inputs were followed in the projects of the ECLAIR programme: the use of biological antagonists, and the development of resistant transgenic crops. The present state of the technology for biological antagonists largely restricts their use to protected cultivation. The technological barriers to wider use include efficacy of the biology in the range of environments found in practice, particularly temperature and humidity, and the quantity, and hence cost, of maintaining a sufficiently large antagonist population. Much of the current technology has, been developed in northern Europe by SMEs mostly for glasshouse operations, although the pest problems in the Mediterranean countries, both in the field and in the large areas of protected cultivation, sets a premium on adapting the technology for the southern situations. Two projects brought northern research teams and SMEs into projects concerned with southern field and protected crops.
The projects concerned with biological control agents involved a multidisciplinary approach to a selection of organisms and the development of manufacturing and delivery systems. All projects reported that products had been developed to at least the pilot stage, involving field or greenhouse trials, in accord with the specific criteria for ECLAIR. One project was reported by the SME involved to have contributed to it establishing an international lead with a nematode product.
The two projects on transgenics with enhanced resistance appear to have had a reasonable degree of success. In accordance with the specific criteria, field trials of tomato and other crops, transgenic for insecticidal crystal proteins, have been carried out. Patents have been obtained on the antifungal proteins for use in crop plants. The two projects on enhanced resistance were small and included two of the major European companies involved in plant biotechnology, Zeneca (now Adventa) and Plant Genetic Systems (now AgrEVO) .
Conclusions
The quantifiable impact of the ECLAIR programme on
European Agroindustrial research is hard to measure as it has touched upon so
many diverse markets, and many of the projects were from the onset quite
upstream in their research objectives. One can mention however the 40 patent
applications, the 200 scientific publications, the 10 commercially available
products, the 42 European agro-industrial networks created, as an overall
measure of technical success.
Its resounding strategic success on the other hand has been in realising the initial objective of the programme in applying and demonstrating on a European level the potential of generic technologies as applied to the important business sectors of animal health, pest control, food technologies, seeds, and the chemical and paper pulp industries. The application of modern biotecnological techniques and information science was an important element in almost every project and it has helped bring many fledgling ideas from the laboratory to a pilot scale or near market scenario.
It has also demonstrated to the European consumer the high level of expertise available across Europe to provide a new range of sustainable industrial and food products and processes from Europe's most abundant resource, renewable biological materials. In relation to non-food applications, and biotechnological deployment, many non-technical barriers still need to be breached especially in the domains of consumer acceptance and supporting policies and legislation. ECLAIR has shown that European agro-industrial research has a tremendous potential to develop new products and processes from new technologies, and to generate employment and increase European competitiveness.
Finally while being only a relatively small entity of the second framework programme its success and the high interest shown in it by industry and academia has led to its continuation and amplification in the AIR and current FAIR programmes where the ingenuity of European agro-industry is even more evident.
© Copyright 2006 Policy Statements
Updated
by CPL Press:
03/07/2007
- biomatnet@biomatnet.org
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