From coal mining to optimizing plant value creation
Making agriculture more efficient with new technological possibilities
Fertile soils and open landscapes, a sensitised population and open potential for the further development of the agricultural economy in the direction of the bioeconomy result in completely new perspectives. Digitalisation and artificial intelligence can be used to tackle many of the challenges of the agriculture of the future that arise from climate change and the transformation of the economy.
Agricultural development regions are emerging from coal-based regions. This promises not only new economic perspectives, but also a focus on the requirements of the future for human supply: Digitally optimised plant value chains provide a basis for a wide range of models for successfully supplying society and the processing industry with agricultural products even under difficult conditions.
In a model bioeconomy region in the central German mining district of Saxony-Anhalt, landscape and economic potential is being used to create new sustainable, ecological and economic objectives for regions that were previously characterized by coal mining.
Development ideas for novel plant-based foods, pharmaceutical products and plant-based raw materials for the chemical industry of tomorrow are being created here – with a model character and nationwide appeal in the form of a Central German model region.
Here you will find an overview of the key unique selling points of the bioeconomy in the southern Saxony-Anhalt region:
- high concentration of leading international plant research institutes,
- Center for international genome and breeding research on cereals,
- Model region for biotic and abiotic stress caused by climate change,
- Focus on the cultivation and utilization of wheat (incl. straw) and sugar beet; very good prospects for expanding the production and utilization of legumes (e.g. peas) and agroforestry,
- Focus on specialty crops with high added value in the medicinal and aromatic plant sector,
- very good agricultural soils, agriculture is considered a central economic factor (within the lead markets of Saxony-Anhalt),
- Important center of the chemical industry in Germany (Central German chemical triangle Leuna, Schkopau, Bitterfeld),
- leading networks for the transformation of the chemical industry into a sustainable bioeconomy,
- established scaling platforms for biorefinery processes,
- established real-world laboratories for modelling and optimizing value chains using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML),
- years of experience and expertise in the socio-economic analysis and evaluation of structural change through bioeconomy.
