Feasibility of cereal straw for industrial utilization in Minnesota

Abstract

A pre-economic feasibility study was undertaken to determine the potential of cereal straw for industrial utilization in Minnesota. Specifically, utilizing straw for pulp and paper manufacture was of interest. The availability of cereal straw fiber supplies at various locations across the state of Minnesota, along with pre-processing issues such as transportation, harvesting, handling, and storage, are discussed and priced. The greatest economic advantage of straw for industrial use appears to be the low cost of the raw material compared to traditional raw materials. This also provides an excellent opportunity for additional income for farmers. The methodology and information provided here should be helpful in evaluating the feasibility of utilizing straw for other industrial purposes in other parts of the world. However, in some Third World countries, long-standing on-farm, traditional uses of cereal straws for fuel, fiber, and animal feed may limit their availability for industrial utilization.

Farmers’ willingness to adopt sustainable agricultural practices: A meta-analysis

“…Similarly, cereal biomass crops are found to present other advantages. For example, cereal straws have the advantage to use on-farm technology for their production system [55], their storage and transportation are economically feasible, and are a potential source of additional income for farmers [56] as they can be transformed into fiber and used for isolation, in the textile industry, and more. These low production costs, as well as the profitability, may explain the low WTA for grassy and cereal biomass crops in comparison to WTA for woody biomass crops.…”

High-solids saccharification and viscosity studies in a scraped surface bio-reactor.

“…However, corn stover has many competing uses such as: potential feed for dairy cattle (Ayers and Buchele, 1982;Fernandez-Rivera and Klopfenstein, 1989;Adams, 1998), fuel in a boiler furnace (Hitzhusen and Abdallah, 1980;Richey et al, 1982), corn stover-based pulp and paper production (Domier, 1995;Wagner et al, 2000), and substrate for furfural production (Foley and Vander Hoover, 1981;Riera et al, 1991).…”