Page 123 - Biorefinery 2030 Future Prospects for the Bioeconomy (2015)

3 Potential for Integration of the Upstream Value Chain 91

This experimental farm will concentrate on crop varieties and farming methods
in the unique Champagne-Ardenne climate. It will provide additional support for
the Bazancourt-Pomacle biorefinery, as well as for other current and future sites in
Champagne-Ardenne. This is also one of the main recommendations made in the
OECD report (2009), according to which combining the agricultural and industrial
bioeconomy will have multiple effects.
If necessary, Champagne winegrowing activities could be included in the work
of this farm. For example, the possible effects of climate change could be studied,
solutions could be found and changes planned. Importing and acclimatising
varieties from other regions could be studied if necessary.
Finally, an experimental farm, in addition to the biorefinery’s existing resources,
would make the site even more attractive for upstream industrial firms.

3.2 Upstream Industry

Upstream industrial firms might be attracted by the principle of shared location that
is omnipresent in the biorefinery’s activity: industry could be integrated with the
innovation platform in the same way via the experimental farm.
In this particular case, the experimental farm would not be created from scratch:
staff from the INRA and Ecole AgroParisTech experimental sites, researchers from
the laboratories of Europol’Agro de Reims (200 researchers) and private test
centres could contribute towards the new site.
Firms producing seed, fertilisers, agricultural machinery and precision agricul-
tural technologies might be interested in working at the Reims Area experimental
farm, and perhaps at the same time occupy non-agricultural land at the air base that
will become available.

3.3 Cumulative Effects?

The cumulative effects of the activity of an experimental farm, coupled with the
contribution of industrial firms, should be witnessed in the agriculture of the
Champagne Ardenne region. As we discussed in Chap. 3, one of the benefits of
the biorefinery’s activity is that certain by-products are returned to the farmers.
These include sugar beet pulp and spent grain out of season for animal feed; and
waste liquids loaded with organic nutrients for spraying on agricultural land.
In this context, opportunities for regenerating the agricultural model, some of
which are already being studied, could enhance the biorefinery’s ecosystem both
upstream and downstream: