A grant from the South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development to Dakota BioWorx will help move South Dakota into the new bioeconomy.
South Dakota Governor Delivers Grant to Daktoa BioWorx
South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden was on hand to announce the $900,000 Future Fund grant for the non-profit bioprocessing facility at South Dakota State University.
“It makes perfect sense to focus on value added agriculture, and so the investment here is an investment in the future of South Dakota,” Rhoden says.
Dakota BioWorx is part of the POET BioProducts Center that opened for business in October of 2023. The facility helps startups developing new uses for crops to become commercially viable.
Bill Even, commissioner for the South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development says without Dakota BioWorx some research would never make it out of the lab.
“How do you get something from the bench to actually scale and get into the full blown business world?” Even asks. “This investment is designed to bridge that gap.”
New Biotech Products
Dakota BioWorx has over 30 businesses interested in working with them on biobased products. According to Dakota BioWorx president and CEO Craig Arnold says some are biotech products with functional uses for farmers.
“Lots to do with improving yields, alternative fertilizers, alternative herbicides, insecticides, soil adjuvents,” Arnold says.
Biobased Innovations
Others are biobased innovations using corn, soybean oil, meal and hulls produced in South Dakota and the region. Jeff Thompson, is a Colton, S.D., farmer and director on the South Dakota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, which provided checkoff support for the facility. He says they are excited about the future for South Dakota crops.
“A lot of the feed stocks are coming from, you know, the crops we raise to go into these new products,” Thompson says. “You just have to break them down and build them back up again to a new usage.”
Opening New Market and Revenue Streams
Daniel Scholl, vice president of research/economic development at SDSU says the goal is to provide new markets for farmers.
“Opening new markets for products that have corn or soybeans or derivatives, their processed derivatives as ingredients,” Scholl says, “so its all about new market opportunities domestically and globally.”
And building demand through new uses helps improve the bottom line of farmers like David Struck. He farms near Wolsey and is chairman of the South Dakota Soybean Research and Promotion Council.
“Over time I think its going to improve usage, which if there’s usage, there’s price increase usually,” Struck says.
The other hope is demand from new bioproducts will help lessen the soybean industry’s dependence on China.
