Grain and oil processing must innovate; "four lows and one short" is the puzzle
Original topic: Facing the problems of low product yield, low edible rate, low utilization rate, low efficiency and a short industrial chain --
Scientific and technological innovation opens up a new path for the grain industry
Top: Boards made from various crop straws displayed at the National "12th Five-Year Plan" Scientific and Technological Achievements Exhibition. Bottom: The color sorter is important equipment for removing discolored rice and white-belly rice during rice processing. The photo shows staff introducing the color of rice after sorting to visitors at the National "12th Five-Year Plan" Scientific and Technological Innovation Achievements Exhibition. Photo by Liu Hui
San Nong Direct Express comprehensive report: Right now is the busy "three summers" farming season, and the production situation is encouraging, but some accompanying problems are also worth noting, such as waste in grain processing and straw burning. An important reason these old problems remain unresolved is that China's grain processing industry generally has the "four lows and one short" problems of low product yield, low edible rate, low utilization rate, low efficiency and a short industrial chain, and grain resources have not been fully utilized.
"We must use scientific and technological innovation to seize the high ground in grain and oil processing, improve grain utilization efficiency, and cultivate new industrial economic growth points," said Chen Zhengxing, executive deputy director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Grain Fermentation Technology and Technology and professor at the School of Food Science and Technology of Jiangnan University. Fortunately, the pace of exploration in China's domestic grain industry is accelerating.
Advancing the development of the green grain industry
The waste caused by excessive processing in China is shocking. According to estimates, excessive processing of wheat loses about 5 billion jin of grain each year, and excessive processing of rice loses more than 7 billion jin of grain each year. More than 50% of the nutrients in grains are attached to the bran layer and germ, and excessive processing causes serious loss of grain nutrients.
Advocating moderate and precise processing, developing whole grain processing, and preserving the natural nutrients of grains are becoming a trend. Wang Ruiyuan, chief expert of the Chinese Cereals and Oils Association, believes that to vigorously promote the green whole grain staple food project, "moderate, nutritious, healthy and convenient" should be taken as the direction of development, purity should be improved, precision should be reasonably controlled, the output rate should be raised, and the inherent nutrients in raw materials should be preserved.
In May this year, the National Health and Family Planning Commission issued the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2016)," advocating that residents consume 250 to 400 grams of cereal and potato foods every day. This is the first time China has written whole grains into the national dietary guidelines, which will help smoothly advance the whole grain staple food project.
"At present, whole grain food processing is still in its infancy, and the grain processing industry faces many technical difficulties. We need to strengthen technological research and development, establish a whole grain food quality evaluation and quality improvement system, pay attention to the application of new technologies in whole grain food development, and study the moderate processing of grains from the perspective of nutrition and health," said Bian Ke, vice president of Henan University of Technology.
Tan Bin, a doctoral researcher at the Academy of Grain Science of the State Administration of Grain, has been engaged in the research and development of whole grain foods for many years. The series of coarse grain products they developed, such as tartary buckwheat dried noodles, sorghum dried noodles and highland barley dried noodles, overcame the technical difficulty that traditional coarse grains do not contain gluten protein. Last year, industrialized production was achieved, and brown rice and instant brown rice porridge went on sale in Jiangxi, Shandong and other places this year. "The development of the whole grain industrial chain drives increased demand for coarse grain and bean foods and drives farmers in remote areas and high-cold areas to grow coarse grains and beans. The whole grain processing industry is expected to become a new growth point for the grain industry," said Tan Bin.
Deep processing expands market space
Developing deep processing of grain, extending the grain industrial chain, and carrying out structural reform on the supply side are another important way to improve the utilization rate of grain resources.
Biodegradable plastics are produced using corn starch as the main raw material, and disposable paper cups, tableware and other products made from them can be composted and degraded after use. These are products produced by Wuhan Huali Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. using starch modification technology. Company chairman Zhang Xianbing told reporters that their company produces 60,000 tons of bio-based materials annually, and the biological materials produced can replace ordinary petrochemical plastics and are widely used in industry, medicine, cosmetics, tableware and other fields.
"At present, domestic grain processing mostly remains in traditional industries with low added value such as glucose and amino acids. Developing toward high value-added industries such as new environmentally friendly materials is the future trend. Only in this way can the added value of grain be increased and enterprises be driven to improve efficiency and farmers to increase income," said Zhang Xianbing.
In the view of Yue Guojun, chief engineer of COFCO Group and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who has worked deeply in the corn deep processing industry for many years, the rapid development of biotechnology has brought unlimited development space to corn deep processing. Processing corn into primary products such as starch, alcohol and high-fructose corn syrup can increase added value by 1 to 2 times; processing it into intermediate products such as citric acid and lysine can increase added value by 3 to 10 times; processing it into advanced products such as enzyme preparations and malic acid can increase added value by 10 to 20 times; processing it into even more advanced products such as welan gum, glutamic acid and xanthan gum can increase added value by more than 20 times.
"There are nearly 4,000 kinds of corn deep processing products worldwide, while China has fewer than 1,000 kinds of corn processing products, mainly middle- and low-end products. China should seize the opportunity of consumption upgrading and accelerate the development of the corn deep processing industry with industrialized thinking," said Yue Guojun.
Do a good job in the big article of the "straw economy"
China can generate more than 900 million tons of straw every year, and large amounts of straw are abandoned in fields or even burned. Now, with the improvement of scientific and technological research and development, developing the "straw economy" and using straw to make fertilizer and feed and to produce artificial boards, biofuels and lignocellulose can increase the added value of straw, protect the ecological environment, and achieve a "win-win" of economic and social benefits.
Formaldehyde-free eco-friendly boards produced from various crop straws as raw materials can meet the production needs of decoration, furniture, flooring, sound-absorbing boards, writing boards and so on. This is technology independently developed by Wanhua Eco-board Industry Co., Ltd. Company staff member Gong Ru told reporters that the technology has achieved industrialization, and the artificial boards produced by the company are used by more than 180 home furnishing enterprises.
Hefei Debo Bioenergy Technology Co., Ltd. is a national-level high-tech enterprise engaged in the research and development, production and sales of green energy products and the operation of biomass gas. According to the company's person in charge, their company has established a complete industrial chain for biomass industrialization and can use rice husks, straw and other materials as raw materials to produce biomass gas to replace traditional energy sources such as coal, oil and natural gas.
Cellulosic fuel ethanol is a biomass energy utilization project that China has strongly promoted in recent years. Straw contains large amounts of natural polymer substances such as cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose. The complete set of 50,000-ton-scale cellulosic ethanol technology successfully developed by COFCO Group in 2014 can fully ferment and convert the five-carbon sugars and six-carbon sugars in crop straw. It also pioneered the alcohol-electricity cogeneration model of fuel ethanol and bioelectricity. While producing fuel ethanol, it uses difficult-to-use lignin to generate electricity, enabling straw to be fully utilized.
"While advancing the industrialization of cellulosic ethanol, we are also developing technology to produce organic acids and amino acids from lignocellulose, further enhancing the added value of straw," said Yue Guojun. (Reporter Liu Hui)
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