Agricultural waste is a troubling issue facing many Australian farmers. But a Gold Coast company is offering a solution to food and feedlot waste as well as invasive weeds. It's turning them into chemical-free compost, fertilizers, and pest management products.
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00:00It looks like something from a superhero comic, but this isn't Hulk juice.
00:13The work done in this lab is far more impressive and just as transformative.
00:19Mick Shipley's in charge of research and operation at this Gold Coast based company.
00:24What we're looking to do here is to develop our microalgal culture capability so that
00:31we can make better use of more waste streams in order to produce plant-based proteins,
00:38which we can then convert to amino acids and then it goes back into agriculture as a bioavailable
00:43formulation.
00:45That's a lot of science, but stick with me and it will become clear.
00:50The company Bio10 wants to commercialise products using only agricultural waste streams.
00:56That means waste from feedlots, food waste and even invasive weeds, initially turning
01:02them into three different products, compost, fertiliser and integrated pest management.
01:09The process uses no synthetic chemicals, but that doesn't mean that there's not a lot of
01:14science involved.
01:16We know that fertilisers, in particular phosphates, they're running out, so in Queensland there's
01:24over a million tonnes of agricultural food waste in specific per year.
01:29That's just wasted nutrients that could go back to agriculture.
01:34It's with this technology they say they can revolutionise the agricultural waste problem.
01:39Not just by turning it into usable products, but by doing it with mind-blowing speed.
01:46This machine is the jewel in the crown.
01:50Composting takes 180 days.
01:52The team at Bio10 claim that with this machine they can do it without off-gassing, without
01:58pathogens, without leakage, in a maximum of just five days.
02:05While rapid composting already exists, the Bee Nature machine breaks down organic material
02:10with a simulated digestion process.
02:15The end result, a mature compost that's immediately beneficial for soil health and plant vitality,
02:22offering a stable and nutrient-dense end product.
02:27Owen Williams from government-sponsored Agribusiness Connect runs a program for finding solutions
02:33in the agricultural industry.
02:35He's been working with the Bio10 team to put their discoveries in front of farmers.
02:40With regards to Bio10, they're an early start-up, so our job is to validate their tech for a
02:44start and then look for the pathway where they can actually get that through to the
02:48farmers where it really makes the impact, and that's usually a commercialisation program.