project - EIP-AGRI Operational Group
Fiber hemp industrial chain for the production of functional food and animal feed additives - Caterpillar
Kontext
Hemp is a multi-purpose crop delivering fibres, shivs and seed. The fibre is used today for specialty paper, insulation material and biocomposites. The shivs, the woody inner core of the stem, are used for animal bedding and construction. Hemp seeds, small nuts, have a high nutritional value, Hemp oil has an excellent and unique fatty acid profile. Both seeds and oil are used for human food and animal feed. Industrial hemp has been grown in Europe for many hundreds of years. Through the Middle Ages and until the end of the sailing ship period Hemp was an important crop in many European countries like The UK, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy. Today Hemp is a niche crop, cultivated on 10,000 to 15,000 ha in the European Union. Because of its unique properties, particularly its environmental benefits and the high yield of natural technical and textile fibres, hemp is a valuable crop for the Bio-Based Economy (Carus, 2017). In fact, hemp is a low-input crop, and a turnover crop that can replace maize or sunflower in spring sowing in our area. Hemp is also useful for crop rotation in organic farming (Grassi, 2016 ).The CATERPILLAR Plan is intended to the Italian hemp agro industrial chain, and is aimed to products diversification and profitability increase by the exploitation of crop potential, mainly implementing the food end uses of hemp chain products, but also exploiting the nutritional value of the production chain wastes. The CATERPILLAR Plan will produce new high added value chain by-products, thus incrementing chain profitability and farm competitiveness on market.
Objectives
The project is based on organic cultivation of monoecious hemp, enhancing its maximum potential by the generation of new high added value products and by-products. Seeds will be used for the production of oil and flour; stalks, for the production of fiber and shives. Oil and flour will be used for new functional and gluten-free foods formulations. Stalks water retting will be carried out in a prototype bioreactor. Hermetia illucens larvae will be feed with biofilm and pectic substrate on retted fibers, thus incrementing their biomass that will be investigated for the production of feed industry additives
Activities
Test plot and field trials aimed to the comparison of crop performance by organic farming in different environments (flatland vs hilly and inner lands). Seed harvesting, drying and pressing by a prototype engyne aimed to the identification of the best pressing condition to preserve organoleptic, nutritional and durabilitiy properties of hemp oil and four (panel). Hemp stalk retting by a prototype bioreactor and retted fiber cleaning by H. illucens larvae feeding; recovery of larval biomass. Hemp food products (oil and panel), and larval biomass characterization, and development of new bread "gluten free" formulations for food industry; production of additives for feed industry by larval biomass.
Project details
- Main funding source
- Rural development 2014-2020 for Operational Groups
- Rural Development Programme
- 2014IT06RDRP003 Italy - Rural Development Programme (Regional) - Emilia-Romagna
Ort
- Main geographical location
- Parma
- Other geographical location
- Piacenza
EUR 213609.17
Total budget
Total contributions from EAFRD, national co-financing, additional national financing and other financing.
5 Practice Abstracts
Development of new gluten-free bakery formulations with hemp flour and their characterization
To enhance the nutritional and health properties of hemp flour, new gluten-free bakery formulations with hemp flour added (fortified) were developed. Breadmaking trials were carried out with conventional formulations to which hemp flour was added in increasing percentages (10%, 15%, 25%). Technological and sensory properties were evaluated, and nutritional and health properties were measured. The content of lipid, protein, essential fatty acid and omega-3 increased in direct proportion to the amount of hemp flour added. Characterization of the amino acid profile of the protein fraction revealed significantly higher contents of serine, proline, hydroxyproline, aspartate, phenylalanine, and tyrosine in the breads with hemp flour added. Finally, the content of total polyphenols and antioxidant activity also showed a consistent trend as the amount of hemp flour added to the dough increased. Analysis of technological and sensory properties identified 15% as the optimal amount of hemp flour for bread fortification. With this percentage of hemp flour, 6 commercial gluten-free bread preparations were fortified; only 2 commercial mixes were suitable for fortification with 15% hemp flour. The breads obtained with these two mixes were characterized, and the analysis showed that the protein, lipid and polyphenolic content, with the related antioxidant properties, increase significantly in all the doughs fortified with hemp flour. Therefore, fortification with hemp flour appears to be a useful system to increase the nutritional (lipid/protein) and antioxidant (total polyphenols) properties of conventional and gluten-free baking doughs.
Retted fiber cleaning and valorisation of retting waste using Black Soldier Fly larvae.
A retted hemp fiber cleaning system has been developed based on the use of BSF larvae, which by feeding on the biofilm covering it, are able to clean up the fiber, increasing their biomass. BSF larvae at 14 days after hatching are arranged on the retted hemp fiber and allowed to feed on the biofilm covering it for 5-6 days. At the end of the cleaning phase, the fiber with the larvae is placed on a trellis and irradiated with a weak source of heat and visible light, which drives the larvae to enter the thickness of the cleaned fiber, cross the trellis and fall to the bottom of a container below, where they are collected. If the source of light and heat is the sun, this system does not consume electricity.
The larval biomass grown on retted hemp fiber for 6 days showed a weight gain of 50.87 ± 7.21 %, being an interesting source of protein (40 % on the dry matter) rich in essential amino acids, and fat (12 %) mainly consisting of saturated fatty acids. Peptic digestion of the protein component, yielded peptide-rich hydrolysates with potential antioxidant, ACE and DPP-IV inhibitory activities, which correlate with blood pressure regulation in mammals and regulation of glucose homeostasis, respectively. The fiber cleaning system developed allows the retting waste to be enhanced from a quantitative but also qualitative point of view, making the larval biomass a potential source of functional ingredients or additives for the food and/or feed industry.
FIELD TRIALS Field trials at the Ca' D'Alfieri and Pedrazzi farms, both residing in inland hill areas (3000 sq. m. sown with the monoecious varieties KC ZUZANA and SECUIENI JUBILEU, respectively) despite adverse weather conditions, allowed for the planned morphometric surveys and the harvesting of stems and infructescences, which were then air-dried. The trials demonstrated the possibility of cultivation even on hilly terrain, and highlighted the need to equip farms with the appropriate mechanical instrumentation to cut hemp stems. In fact, stem harvesting was carried out manually, with a chainsaw, in both fields. The air-dried seed was shelled manually. Overall, The morphometric and production data obtained in both farms encourage hemp cultivation even in disadvantaged areas, highlighting the need for dedicated machines for harvesting and processing its products.
Water retting and charachterization of the retting consortium
The microbial consortium operating in the bioreactor for the water retting of hemp bast fiber was characterized by DNA Metabarcoding of the V3-V4 hypervariable region of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene. Samples of retting liquor, taken at the beginning (T0), in the middle of the process (TM), and at the end of the process (TF) from 8 consecutive retting cycles were sequenced and sequences subjected to bioinformatic analysis. Analyses revealed the substantial contribution of the fiber to the composition of the retting microbiome and the ability of the bioreactor to select, in terms of relative abundance and number, some genera of bacteria which, according to the literature, are involved in various types of retting processes:
1) Clostridia: they are introduced into the system at T0 by the fiber and increase in relative abundance and number of species in the intermediate phase of the process to stabilize in the final one.
2) Bacteroides: apparently introduced by the fiber they tend to increase significantly from T0 to TF of the first experiment, but also increase substantially over time when comparing consecutive retting cycles in which 5% of the retting liquor belonging to the precedent cycle is used as “starter for the subsequent retting cycle
3) Enterobacteriaceae: introduced into the system by hemp fibre, they tend to increase in the second retting cycle with inoculum and to reduce in abundance, increasing in number of species during the third and subsequent retting cycles.
4) Pseudomonas: massively present on the dry fiber and also in the water source, they are negatively selected during the process. Species with pectinolytic activity belong to this genus
The CATERPILLAR Plane is aimed to the actual characterization of hemp oil and flour (panel) due to their use for dietetic and functional food formulations, and also to the production of feed additives by fiber hemp chain wastes (retting wastes). The Plan expected outocomes are:
1.Organic hemp oil and flour (panel) production and chemical characterization of their nutritional and nutraceutical properties;
2. New "gluten free" bread formulations development with hemp flour and oil, and their nutritional and sensorial profiling;
3. Set up af a new and eco-friendly fiber cleaning system, based on Hemetia illucens larvae feeding;
4. Larval biomass, grown on retted fiber nutritional profiling aimed to its valorisation for industrial food or feed end uses;
5. Larval biomass fractionation aimed to the production of protein additives for animal feed;
6. Set up of a scalable short production chain, organic and sustainable, to be applied also to small farms located in inner lands and dealing with little growth opportunities
Contacts
Project coordinator
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Open Fields
Project coordinator
Project partners
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Azienda Agraria Sperimentale Stuard
Project partner
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Azienda Agricola Ca' d'Alfieri
Project partner
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CREA - Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l'analisi dell'economia agraria
Project partner
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Dinamica S.C.aR.L.
Project partner
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Naturfibre s.r.l.s.
Project partner
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Società Agricola Pedrazzi
Project partner
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Università degli Studi di Parma
Project partner