Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Vegetables: garlic
Practices
- Farm Business Management: feasibility study, new enterprise development
Proposal abstract:
The growing nutraceutical market (estimated to surpass $20 B by 2006) provides local farmer opportunity to supply more cash raw material. However, to benefit actually from the nutraceutical industry, farmers have to sell the semi-processed & processed products, not only raw material. Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) technology is a promising alternative to the traditional processing methods due to several distinct advantages. SFE technology using carbon dioxide as solvent is GRAS or "green" status accepted in both Europe and the U.S. Now the nutraceuticals produced from SFE is commercially available and the market is growing in recent years. SFE technology has great potential to be applied on local farm to produce semi-product for nutraceutical manufacturers. We have initiated the development of local farm-adopted equipment and intend to transfer this technology to farmer’s hand by the demonstration of SFE technology for garlic oil production on site, as the engineer introduced the engine power or tractor to farming in 1910s. The extension of the SFE technology on local farm would promote nutraceuticals production, enhance local farmer profit and promote local economy.
Project objectives from proposal:
Objectives: (1) To investigate the pathway and key points to SFE technology extension on small & medium-size local farms. (2) To further optimize SFE kinetics parameters of garlic oil on the basis of on site operation. (3) To investigate the criteria for developing the small & medium-size farm-adopted SFE equipment.