Ireland’s Demo Site
Farm Zero C
Farm Zero C demo site has been developed at Shinagh Farm’s, a 200 acre dairy farm located in Western Cork, Ireland.
The site was set up in 2021 as a collaborative effort between Carbery, BiOrbic and partners – including Munster Technological University, University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin – to create a climate-neutral dairy farm that is also economically viable, built upon a holistic framework. This includes integrating strategies such as soil and grassland management, animal diet and breeding, clover and multispecies swards, renewable energy, enhancing biodiversity and measuring impacts using life cycle assessment. A key area of research and development at Farm Zero C is the development of green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion to improve the farms’ grassland utilisation.
Main areas of work
Demonstrate an integrated on-farm green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion system
Scaling and optimising an integrated grass biorefinery and anaerobic digestion system on a real dairy farm. The green biorefinery system will be evaluated as a strategy to improve the overall sustainability of a dairy production system.
Improve the sustainability and flexibility of green biorefinery supply chain
The Irish demonstration site will test different feedstocks aimed at expanding the green biorefinery processing season and enhancing the sustainability of the feedstocks. Fresh and ensiled pasture-based feedstocks, like clover-grass and multi-species swards, along with green crop by-products will be considered.
Demonstrating of a novel cascading green biorefinery model
The model aims to improve the current green biorefinery model by enhancing feedstock supply chain, improving and optimising process yields and integrating cascading production systems which target the co-production of high quality proteins, bio-materials and ingredients, as well as energy and fertilisers.
Production and analysis of novel products and ingredients
At the Irish demonstration site a variety of novel products will be produced and analysed as prototype products in collaboration with partners. This includes high quality proteins, additives for improving animal health, human food and flavour ingredients and packaging additives and materials.
Previous Green Biorefinery Research at Farm Zero C
The development of the Rural BioReFarmeries demo site on Farm Zero C, builds upon previous green biorefinery research and development at the farm. In 2019 Shinagh Farm was part of the Biorefinery Glas project focused on small-scale farmer led green biorefineries.
This project led by MTU and collaborating with Carbery Group, UCD, Grassa and Barryroe Cooperative, was Ireland’s first green biorefinery demonstration project, and focused on demonstration of a mobile biorefinery for the project of protein feed products and ingredients from grasslands. The research was continued as a key pillar of the Farm Zero C initiative aimed at incorporating green biorefinery as a strategy for climate mitigation in dairy systems.
In 2023 MTU and UCD in collaboration with Carbery were awarded €3.1 million funding by Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to develop a demonstration scale farm-based green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion facility based at the farm. This facility with capacity of up to 10 tonnes input capacity per day, will be a new demo site within the Rural BioReFarmeries project, where it will be implemented and optimized during the project to target the production of pulp fibres, proteins, VFA’s, energy and fertilisers.
These new products can bring new revenue streams for the farm, but will also contribute to the climate mitigation activities of Farm Zero C.