The Gruber family combines modern, "blue" production techniques for e.g. fish, vegetables and medicinal herbs in a particularly sustainable - and above all: impressively demonstrative - way.
In our future, food supply needs better solutions to adapt to the rising population, climate change and increasingly limited cultivation areas. In Germany alone, 10 million ha of land are used solely for livestock feed. This is more than half of the agricultural area used in total. Grass, cereals and corn can thus cover a large part of the basic feed requirements for German livestock farmers resp. their animals. What is lacking, however, are protein-rich supplementary feeds. These aren´t produced in sufficiently large quantities neither in Germany nor in the EU, so Germany imports around 26 percent of the protein contained in livestock feed - much of it as soy - from South America and the USA. Even canola, the world's second most widely grown crop for food, feed and energy production, can´t show up with a positive carbon footprint.
With sophisticated systems, it would yet be possible to produce healthy protein and feed biomass on a smaller area of land, even more economically, more diversely and resource-saving. By expanding blue bioeconomy, we can also become less dependent on imports. Modern, animal-welfare friendly insect- and aquaculture systems, just like fruits and vegetables, may be produced on comparably tiny land areas with very high yields and may be up to 100x higher yielding if compared to grain farming. A strong example: Just 2.7% of the area in this country is used to grow potatoes, but the yield covers both our own national needs and significant export requirements. Traditional agriculture should therefore be usefully supplemented and even expanded by blue components.
Professional as well as touristic guests will soon be welcomed by the Gruber family at the first Blue Bioeconomy model site RüBio.
Initially, four coupled production cycles are planned: (medical) herbs, insects, fish and beer brewing. The system remains permanently dynamic and can always be expanded to include further components, e.g. mushroom cultures.
The Bioeconomic Research Center Rügen, RüBio for short, will be a comprehensive development facility with a lot of practical research, intended to be a linking element between science and new products.
The modernized industrial facility allows creative experts of various fields to find a place where visions and the implementation of new bioeconomy technologies can be realized with the time it often needs. Bioeconomy is a process that needs a lot of biological understanding, and patience to promote natural cycle processes.
RüBio is thus intended to become a permanent attraction and innovation hub for blue bioeconomy professionals from all over Europe.
