May 30, 2009

Climate Consortium Denmark, the Danish Agricultural Council, and Novozymes bring agriculture's contribution to solutions for the climate challenge into focus, with the aim to highlight the role that Denmark's strong competencies in biotechnology can play for the agricultural sector.

This strategic partnership will highlight the modern and efficient agricultural production practices.

The Danish Agricultural Council and Novozymes have a concrete goal, to develop a vision jointly for how the use of biotechnological solutions can make both agriculture and the food industry more effective and sustainable.

The partnership also includes Climate Consortium Denmark, which aims to increase the visibility of Danish solutions and competencies for both climate and energy as well as to raise international awareness of the common efforts through various activities.

Biotechnology is already providing solutions for agriculture, for example, enzymes for animal feed.

If all the pigs in Europe were given feed supplemented with these enzymes, their digestion would be improved to such an extent that CO2 emissions in Europe would be reduced by four million tonnes per year.

Other enzymes enable the prevention of oxygen depletion in lakes and rivers that is currently caused by the leaching of phosphorus from manure.

Novozymes is also working to develop microorganisms and environmentally efficient technologies for maximising the energy yield from agricultural manure for the production of electricity, heat, and transport as well as high-quality fertiliser. Denmark converts less than five percent of agricultural manure into energy in the form of biogas. Of this five percent, only 50 percent of the available energy is utilised.

The Danish Board of Technology estimates that if the entire energy content of the manure was utilised, it would supply 25 percent of the energy requirements of the transport sector.