On-farm system turns rice plants into biofuel and fodder

SciDevNet (February 9, 2015) | A technology to create biofuel and animal feed at the same time without any off-site processing has been developed by Japanese researchers. The solid-state fermentation (SSF) system involves wrapping rice plants grown to feed livestock along with yeast, enzymes and bacteria into a bale covered with a plastic film, and capturing the ethanol produced by the resulting fermentation.