Treating wheat and barley grains with atmospheric cold plasma has been found to reduce mycotoxin levels and boost seed germination. Canadian researchers have shown that by using a relatively low temperature version of the typically superheated matter they were able to lower levels of harmful toxins caused by fungi that thrive in warm, humid conditions.

Lead researcher Ehsan Feizollahi, from the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta, said the discovery could provide the food processing and livestock feed industries with more effective and efficient ways to process grains that were safe for consumption. Mycotoxins pose threats to both livestock and human health.

Feizollahi said because mycotoxins resist high temperatures, removing them from grains was challenging: “There is no effective method currently available for reducing mycotoxins on grain,” adding that common food processing practices such as roasting, baking and frying may only partially remove them: “We need to find better methods of decontamination.”

He created 2 forms of the plasma: as an ionized gas and as liquid. And then used them to treat barley and wheat grains infected with two mycotoxins that are particularly troublesome across Canada and the globe – zearalenone and deoxynivalenol. Using the plasma to decontaminate the grains lowered the levels of the 2 toxins by 54%, which Professor M.S. Roopesh, who supervised Feizollai’s work, described as a promising start.

“With optimisation for the conditions, figuring in factors such as the type of plasma, treatment conditionals and treatment time, we could achieve much more than 54%. Ultimately, that means farmers could use more of their grain, so there’s less waste, and from the health point of view, humans and animals can consume the grain and not be affected by mycotoxins,” added Roopesh.

The researchers also found that the treatment processes they used took only a short time, ranging from a minute to an hour, potentially increasing efficiency for the food processing industry. The treatments are also environmentally sustainable.

Panelists at the 2024 Feed Mill of the Future Conference covered topics including technologies and techniques that can improve feed production’s efficiency and bottom line.

Circularity is based on the concept of reduce, reuse and recycle, and focuses on the goal of repurposing and eliminating waste, therefore improving environmental sustainability. Feeding human food waste to insects that will break down that waste and then using the insects in animal feed to produce protein that will then feed humans is an example of circularity.

“Circularity is not a new concept. It makes a lot of sense to try to extract value from all parts of resources,” Maye Walraven, North American general manager and chief impact officer, Innovafeed, said. “But I think it’s becoming more of a trend or more of a priority because we are feeling environmental pressure.”

As an insect producer, Innovafeed was inspired to build upon processes that occur naturally and improve upon it. “We kind of took our inspiration through nature and, in nature, insects really act as a super upcycler,” she said. “They will feed on this very low-quality biomass that other animals won’t eat … and so we’re really trying to reproduce that on a large industrial scale where we grow insects and we tap into very large stocks of byproducts that are available.” The insects are then used as feed ingredients, including oil and protein, as well as even the insects’ waste products as a fertilizer.

The panel also discussed the role of feed additives and artificial intelligence in improving sustainability and reducing waste.

Groundwater levels across the world have shown widespread and “accelerated” decline over the past 40 years, driven by unsustainable irrigation practices as well as climate change, according to a study published at the end of January.

Groundwater is a major source of fresh water for farms, households and industries, and depletion could pose severe economic and environmental threats, including falling crop yields and destructive land subsidence, particularly in coastal areas, said the study, published in the Nature scientific journal.

“One of the most likely major driving forces behind rapid and accelerating groundwater decline is the excessive withdrawal of groundwater for irrigated agriculture in dry climates,” said Scott Jasechko from the University of California, Santa Barbara, one of the paper’s co-authors.

But drought, driven by climate change, was also having an impact, with farmers likely to pump out more groundwater to ensure their crops are irrigated, he said.

Depletion has been particularly pronounced in arid climates with extensive croplands, said the study, which analysed 170,000 wells in more than 40 countries. Northern China, Iran and the western United States were among the worst-hit regions.

More than a third of the 1,693 aquifer systems – bodies of porous rock or sediment holding groundwater- monitored by the study fell by at least 0.1 m per year from 2000 to 2022, with 12% seeing annual declines of more than 0.5 m. Some of the worst hit aquifers in Spain, Iran, China and the United States fell by more than 2 m per year over the period. In around 30% of the aquifers studied, the depletion rate has accelerated since 2000.

Some aquifers did improve over the period, in part as a result of local measures aimed at restricting how much water can be pumped out. Aquifers can also be replenished with water diverted from elsewhere. However, such recoveries were “relatively rare” and much more work still needed to be done, Jasechko said.