Space for technological innovation in agribusiness
Valor Econômico
Do not freak out if the mortar used in the improvements of your house contain sugarcane bagasse, the Sunday bread and pasta are conserved in propolis extract and the biodiesel used in trucks have the antioxidant protection of cashew nut oil. Within a year and a half, the Brazilians should come across "exotic" products made of agricultural raw-materials in search of the desired industrial technological innovation.
The research, which is already underway, is part of an extensive list of nearly 200 projects sponsored by the service of support to the national industry in partnership with companies and the Federal Government. The newest innovation projects chosen by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), whose development will be supported with R$ 34.4 million (US$ 19.1 million) in 18 months, are based on certain agribusiness products. "We seek to generate ideas with practical application and technological incorporation in the lives of companies", says the Executive Manager of Industrial Technology of the Senai (Brazilian National Service of Industrial Learning), Orlando Clapp Filho.
In its sixth year, the "Edital Senai-SESI de Inovação" program that requires counterparts from the companies and has 100 scholars in your projects, received 336 projects from 18 States. One fourth of the 77 proposal approved were from the sector of foods and beverages. They are researches applied for the use of goat milk whey in fermented dairy beverages, production of wheat-, sorghum- and mushroom-based functional foods, besides a special flour made of beans and cereal bar with fibers from the Pantanal. Since 2004, 42 projects have been concluded with "success rate" of 52%. "Since the country has no comparison models, we do not know whether that is a lot or a little", says the Manager of Technological Innovation of the Senai, Marcelo de Carvalho.
Created in 1995 to process limestone, Brasil Química, based in Mossoró (RN), decided to use the bagasse of the sugarcane to replace the cement used in the mortar. Searching to reduce the costs, the company already uses limestone in place of sand. "We use less sand and we are now going to save on the cement and increase the yield, take the bagasse off the environment and avoid the burning of the waste", says the businessman Marcelo Rosado Batista. The ton of cement, he said, went from R$ 280 (US$ 156) to R$ 350 (US$ 194) in two years. Even coming from 300 km away, the bagasse is cheaper. "The freight is not expensive and we have no competition with biomass energy".
In the other side of the country, the São Paulo company Novo Mel, founded from the Apiary of the Rehder family, has already started researching to develop the biotechnology and a line of machines to extract from propolis, a resin taken from the plants by bees, a powerful preservative to be used in bakeries. Propolis keeps the beehives fungi- and bacteria-free and it will be used to extend the usable life of the bread on the shelves. "We will use natural inputs to improve the industrial chain and increase the productivity in the extraction of the product", says the businessman Carlos Pamplona Rehder. Today, thermal or chemical additives are used as preservatives. "We will an organic and functional call".
Vegeflora Extrações do Nordeste, the Piauí-based branch the Centroflora industry, of Botucatu (SP), is also preparing its small revolution. It is studying how to turn a by-product of the cashew nuts into an antioxidant to protect biodiesel made from soy. A South-American leader in plant extracts for foods, pharmaceutical products, and cosmetics, the company seeks to slowdown the process of rancidity of the biodiesel. The additive currently used is imported.