Mar 26, 2024 ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation
ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Ichiro Tsuge, President and CEO; hereinafter “CTC”) will start collaboration with LIFULL Agri Loop Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Daisuke Kishi, Representative; hereinafter "LIFULL Agri Loop"), aiming at creating a new business model and realizing a recycling-oriented society in the agriculture and livestock industry through verification of the effectiveness of "Poop Loop," a catalyst for conversion into fertilizer using LIFULL Antioxidant Loop (hereinafter "L-AL*1) technology.
Problems in the agriculture and livestock industry
The manure generated in the livestock industry is difficult to treat, resulting in a chain of problems including "foul odor and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions," "generation of large amounts of nitrate," "deterioration of pasture soil," "decrease in grass yield and quality," "deterioration of cattle health," and "decrease in milk yield and quality". These problems have led not only to environmental pollution, but also to worsening profitability of dairy farms.
On the other hand, manure is a useful resource containing nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potassium. Although it has the potential to be an alternative to chemical fertilizers for farmland, whose prices have been continuously rising, the lack of technology to safely use huge amounts of manure on farmland has prevented progress of its utilization.
Effectiveness of and issues resolved by Poop Loop
"Poop Loop", the L-AL-powered catalyst for conversion of manure into fertilizer offered by LIFULL Agri Loop, is an aqueous catalyst that can convert livestock manure into fertilizer through its physicochemical reactions in a short period of time without emitting bad odor or GHG and stabilize nitrogen components with ammonium, enabling higher quality crops and yield increases. Poop Loop has been already used on dairy farms in Hokkaido, Japan after a simple process of adding it to a large amount of manure and stirring them, which achieved significant reduction of manure odors and greenhouse gases and increase of pasture grass yield and its sugar level when applied to pastureland. Use of the increased yield of high-sugar pasture grasses as cattle feed has resulted in a significant reduction in feed purchase costs and an increase in sales due to higher milk production. Therefore, the effective utilization of manure processed with Poop Loop has led to improvement of profitability of dairy farms.
The use of Poop Loop prevents soil acidification and creates nutrient-rich "healthy soil", which suppresses weed growth and helps to achieve sustainable agriculture without replacing the soil. This is expected to lead to improved crop yields and ultimately to increased food self-sufficiency.
Collaboration between CTC and LIFULL Agri Loop
CTC is working to promote the use of carbon credits in the agricultural sector by accurately measuring GHG emissions from farmlands and tokenizing actual GHG emission reductions into NFT (Non-Fungible Token). Utilizing this expertise, we will be responsible for measuring and visualizing odor gases and GHG emissions from pastures where fertilizers made by converting manure with Poop Loop are used for 6 months. We will also conduct analysis and verification for verifying effectiveness of Poop Loop and for carbon credit trading. By generating carbon credits in the management of livestock manure, we will promote the proper treatment of manure and its effective use as fertilizer. In addition, we will measure and analyze the chlorophyll content of pasture grass for three months to predict the best time to harvest high quality, high sugar level grass. This will also help dairy farmers to achieve improvement of self-sufficiency in feedstuff, thereby realizing recycling-oriented agriculture.
"Healthy soil" produced with Poop Loop and humic substances
Poop Loop can be applied not only to livestock manure but also to organic wastes such as sewage sludge and food scraps. Fulvic acid and humic acid, which are attracting attention as biostimulants*2, have also been confirmed to be generated and thus Poop Loop is expected to improve the production and quality of agricultural products by converting all organic wastes into fertilizer to be used for maintaining "healthy soil”.
LIFULL Agri Loop and CTC aim to create a new business model by verifying the effects of Poop Loop. We will also promote alliances and collaborations with various partner companies, that aim to build a recycling-oriented society and realize sound material recycling, and engage in initiatives to create a mechanism that contributes to improvement of the global environment and the human living environment, including joint business development and creation of an ecosystem centered on L-AL, including Poop Loop.
About LIFULL Agri Loop Co., Ltd.
LIFULL Agri Loop engages in businesses using an aqueous catalyst developed by Daiso KET Institute. With its functions to control the redox reaction of substances, the catalyst enables to accelerate recycling of organic matters and to generate biostimulants such as fulvic acid and humic acid. With L-AL technology, LIFULL Agri Loop is committed to making “the earth healthy", realizing high-quality food production, improving profitability of producers, and providing safe, high-quality food to consumers.
- *1 L-AL is a technology that accelerates and stabilizes the recycling of organic matters into inorganic matters through a physicochemical reaction using a special iron catalyst.
- *2 Biostimulants are substances that have a positive effect on plants by bringing better physiological conditions to plants and soil.
Contact Information
ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation, Corporate Communications Dept.
E-mail:press@ctc-g.co.jp
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