Kiemkracht: Farming Innovation

Kiemkracht: Farming Innovation

“Kiemkracht” (Germinative Power, Growth Vigour) started in November 2007 as a joint initiative of the agriculture sector (Product Board Arable Products) and InnovationNetwork of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries. Kiemkracht represents 18,000 arable farmers in the Netherlands. Kiemkracht operates independently and has its own funds and means to initiate transition.

Kiemkracht has the objective to develop the innovation agenda for arable farming in the Netherlands, to develop ground-breaking concepts for innovation and to open up new horizons.

Kiemkracht develops in cooperation with InnovationNetwork and other stakeholder’s radical new concepts in agriculture, agribusiness, agrochemistry and rural areas and ensures that these are put into practice by interested parties. This involves innovations aimed at sustainable development with a longer-term focus. Kiemkracht and InnovationNetwork make efforts to set radical new concepts in motion by developing radical concepts which, once put into practice, bring forth radical changes.

Arable farming produces raw materials and energy for the biobased economy. Raw materials are converted into pharmaceuticals, food and feed, specialty and base chemicals, performance materials and eventually transport fuels, biogas, electricity and heat. It is the objective of Kiemkracht to create added value for farmers by using the green power of the sun for raw material creation and close agro-ecological cycles to sustain perpetual arable crop production. The basic principle of Kiemkracht is to innovate bioproduction chains by starting with the needs of society, citizens and consumers.

Kiemkracht has identified new concepts in the fields of:

1)   Climate saving soils: addition of organic matter (BioChar) to the soil enhances soil fertility and creates a carbon sink for CO2 sequestration.

2)   Design food of vegetable proteins for human consumption.

3)   Smartbots for sensitive crop management and harvesting.

4)   Waste is food, close mineral cycles for perpetual agro-production.

5)   Biorefinery with the plant as source for new added value products.

6)   GreenSteel, high performance biomaterials for high tech applications.

Prof.dr. Rob van Haren is director Kiemkracht and also professor product innovation and knowledge transfer Agribusiness within the faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen. He is member of the “Platform Groene Grondstoffen” (Biobased Raw Materials Platform) which is one of the advisory committees for the Dutch government within the framework of Energy Transition to a sustainable future.