Fermentation technologies have a major economic impact. (Technology).

Few of us are aware of the important role fermentation technologies play in our lives, even though we use products of these technologies every day. Fermentation involves the use of micro-organisms, such as bacteria, yeast and fungi, to make a wide variety of industrial products. It is used, for example, to produce 75 million tonnes of beer and wine worldwide every year. Fermentation is also used to make ethanol, which is becoming a significant new fuel stock, both as a gasoline additive and a source of hydrogen for fuel cells. Canada currently produces 250 million litres of ethanol a year.

But alcohol is just one of many products produced from fermentation. Others include relatively simple chemical compounds like lactic acid, acetic acid, acetone and butanol, which are used on their own or as building blocks to create other more complex chemicals through chemical or biological means. An example is the conversion of lactic acid into biodegradable plastic.

Another group of products that are produced by fermentation are a collection of polymers that have applications in the food, oil, lubricant and consumer products industries. Polymers have a wide range of applications, from thickening food to use as a drilling mud during oil production. Polymers are being tested for use as industrial lubricants and as an alternative to petroleum-derived greases.

Enzymes, biological catalysts produced in large quantities from fungi or bacteria, have an enormous number of uses in a variety of industries. The world markets for industrial and therapeutic enzymes are $1.6 billion and $2.3 billion per year respectively. Industrial enzymes are used, for instance, to convert grain starch into sugars in the production of rennin, which is used to make cheese.

Fermentation technologies are used in the production of a wide variety of nutritional, food and pharmaceutical compounds. These include large volume products like food and flavor compounds, vitamins, amino acids and antibiotics. The 270,000 tonnes of citric acid produced worldwide each year for use in the food industry, for example, is worth $1.4 billion. Antibiotic production includes about 160 different products and has a total annual worldwide market of about $23 billion.

Locally, Saskatchewan agriculture makes use of a number of crop inputs containing bacteria or fungi produced using fermentation, including crop inoculants and bio-fertilizers. Important crop inoculants in Saskatchewan contain soil bacteria that form a symbiotic relationship with the host legume plant, improving plant growth by helping the plant meet its nutritional requirements by utilizing nitrogen from the air. Efforts are now being made to develop new products and improve production methods that will enhance the economic competitiveness of biofertilizers and help increase their market.

There are also a number of bio-control products available to the agriculture industry, with many more in development. A number of commercial bio-insecticides are formulated using toxins produced from Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, while various species of fungi are being investigated for use as direct application bio-insecticides or bio-herbicides. Bio-control products have the advantage over common pesticides of not affecting non-target species. While still in their infancy, bio-pesticides already have worldwide sales in excess of $125 million per year.

On the animal health side, Saskatchewan producers benefit from fermentation products such as nutritional feed supplements, amino acids and enzymatic digestion aids and veterinary biologics, antibiotics and vaccines. Examples of digestion aids include enzymes that help make barley and rye more digestible to poultry and cattle. Veterinary biologics help maintain healthy livestock. Vaccines reduce the risk and spread of diseases while antibiotics help minimize financial losses following an outbreak.

Fermentation and the science and technology surrounding it play a large role in our society, from industrial processes through food and health aids to consumer products. And in Saskatchewan, they also play an increasingly important role in our single-largest industry, agriculture.

Kelly Hill is the Manager of Fermentation Technologies at the Saskatchewan Research Council.