LIBBIO

Innovation Center Iceland coordinates LIBBIO, a European research project on the Andean Lupin. Lupin has the ability to fix nitrogen, mobilise soil phosphate and has low nutritional requirements for cultivation.

Varieties will be chosen that give high yield of green silage or high yield of seeds which contain 20% oil, more than 40% protein. The remaining materials are carbohydrates, mainly oligosaccharides which can be characterized as “prebiotics”. Andean Lupin will be grown as a summer crop in N-central Europe and as a winter crop in Mediterranean conditions.

Pre-industrial processing is developed and optimized for the lupin, properties of the different fractions are analysed, their advantage for different industrial use is evaluated, and a few products are developed as an example. Social and environmental impact will be evaluated as well as techno-economic viability and effect on farm and biorefinery income.

The estimated project cost is 5 million euro.