The future British home -- made of straw

By Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters): Imagine building a house with straw, using a deodorant made out of wheat or laundering your clothes with detergent derived from cereals.

In some cases it has happened and in others the future could be that strange, if researchers and campaigners have their way.

With "natural" becoming the buzzword for cosmetics and skin care, biodegradable becoming a sought-after alternative to environmentally damaging chemicals and the world searching for new energy sources, researchers have gone back to nature.

They say that wheat, maize, rapeseed and starch from crops could provide a rich source of materials for a whole range of products, applications and uses that do not hurt the environment, are kind to your skin and help your health.

"It is a massive area. Nonfood uses for crops range from specialist materials to pharmaceuticals to bioenergy to biogas and so on," said Ray Marriott, managing director of Botanix and a member of a government-industry forum aiming to encourage the development of nonfood uses for traditional crops.

"It is a very hard question to answer at the moment (which product area will be most successful), we are too early in our deliberations, but this is what the government-industry forum has been set up to find out -- where are the real opportunities for UK agriculture."

It could be the use of wheat straw in construction materials, starch in skin care, cosmetic products and detergents, the development of plant-derived vaccines or the use of maize as an alternative to fossil fuel.

Some critics argue that Britain has been left behind as other European countries and the United States forge ahead with projects to produce bioethanol and biodiesel and the production of starch for many uses.

But now Britain has started to play catch-up.

Back to nature

"The reason they went away from (crops) in the first place was that there were cheaper alternatives and people didn't realize the environmental or health implications," said Ian Bartle, chief executive of Alternative Crops Technology Interaction Network (ACTIN).

"(The old resources) are still very cost competitive so it is only very forward looking companies that are making the change. There are quite considerable costs ... so to change over to natural, fairly variable, raw material is quite a challenge."

Companies might have to change their machinery needed to process the raw materials, and crops can be variable -- dependent for their growth and quality on the weather, soil types and harvested only once or twice a year, he said.

"So the challenge is to turn a variable product into a uniform material as a feedstock for industry," Bartle said, adding that in some industries the room for growth for crops over the next 10 years was good.

Surfactants -- a substance which reduces surface tension -- made from grain starches could be a big hit in the detergent and skin and hair care industries.

The market already uses 2.3 million tons of surfactants, 460,000 tons of which are from renewable sources, and researchers say that number could double over the next 10 years.

"The general public is really very keen to move away from chemicals to more natural products. This is an area where there could be significant market pull," Bartle said.

Farmers, whose crops have declined steadily in value over the years, said they would be ready to meet the challenge -- but there would have to be some incentive.

Challenge

Richard Butler, chairman of the cereals committee at the National Farmers' Union, said farmers would welcome new uses for their crops.

"We face the prospects of static or declining markets for our produce, we are producing wheat on a larger area and we are going to achieve bigger yields ... the combination of these factors will result in a very depressed market for UK wheat producers," he told a recent conference run by ACTIN.

"This strategy to identify a novel use for existing crops is of great interest to a wider group of farmers ... (but) it is important to remember that whatever end uses scientists come forward with, processors and industrialists must make it attractive to farmers on both a financial and practical basis."

He said the government should back endeavors by making funds available to make sure farmers do not lose out.

"Many EU member states are far more sympathetic to the alternative, nonfood use of agricultural crops, offering tax breaks and other incentives to aid production of bioethanol and biodiesel for example," Butler said.

"It's time for an industry partnership between processors and producers to respond to the challenge. The UK has a plentiful wheat surplus every year ... we have the technology and the ability to store separate varieties unlike much of the EU.

"Let's have some action."