LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – Farmers looking to diversify their markets have new opportunities in the bio-based materials, manufacturing and energy sectors, according to participants in a Farm Foundation Forum, “Opportunities for U.S. Agriculture in the Bio-Based Materials and Energy Economy.”

“Plant-based innovation is expanding beyond food, powering fuels, materials and manufacturing systems that can strengthen U.S. resilience and create new value for producers,” said Timothy Brennan, Farm Foundation’s vice president of programs and strategic impact, while introducing the May 7 forum. It examined the plant-derived innovations that are rapidly expanding markets for new cash crops such as pennycress, miscanthus and inspiring new uses for traditional row crops. The forum also looked at how U.S. industries, land grant universities and the federal government are supporting biotechnology and the burgeoning bioeconomy.

For example, a recently established tech hub on the University of Illinois-Urbana campus is focused on establishing a biomass-based manufacturing pipeline in central Illinois and the Midwest. “We are trying to pull all the pieces together to make the bioeconomy and biomanufacturing really work here in central Illinois and supporting the economy more broadly,” said forum panelist Beth Conerty, regional innovation officer for the University of Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing Tech Hub (iFAB), a 36-member industry and university consortium devoted to expanding the U.S. biomanufacturing industry and the bioeconomy.

‘We are really focused on biomanufacturing because this offers an enormous potential to bring manufacturing domestically to the United States. As most of the inputs for biomanufacturing are agricultural commodities, with Illinois being a leading producer of both corn and soybeans and surrounded by agricultural commodities, we really think that there is no better place to build a biomanufacturing economy than here in Illinois,” Conerty said. “This offers an enormous potential for both the economy with the potential for $200 billion and one million additional jobs within the next 10 to 15 years, and we are focused on bringing as much of that to Illinois as possible.”

Biomanufacturing via precision fermentation technology, used to produce ethanol, grain alcohol and soy sauce, has evolved as a host to a range of new end products and markets, according to Conerty. “We are taking a plant material, typically corn sugar or soy glycerol but we can also use a whole range of agricultural feedstocks like sugar cane or sorghum…and putting them into a fermentation tank and making chemicals that can be used in our food,” she said. “These are products like natural dyes to replace synthetic dyes, polymers that can be used for textiles to replace polyester or nylon, industrial chemicals or plastics. This technology is offering a whole range of end products that can be used now.”

Though the potential for biomass-based products is great, lack of infrastructure is restricting some promising technologies from reaching consumer or industry markets, Conerty explained.

“This middle step is what iFAB is trying to solve to enable more fermentation products to reach the market,” she said. “It is about building more physical tanks, so that more companies and technologies can use those tanks. We are building (out) in a stepwise manner.”

As a federally funded tech hub through the Department of Commerce, iFAB received $51 million from the Biden administration in July 2024 to establish Illinois as a leader in the U.S. biomanufacturing economy. The state of Illinois has also been supportive of biomanufacturing, granting over $31 million to iFAB to supplement the federal award and bring more biomanufactured products to market.

New and emerging biomass consumer products include diapers, air filters, paints, sealants, mulch and 3-D printing filament, according to James Gluek, executive director of the Plant Based Products Council (PBPC) and senior vice president of advanced bioproducts for the Corn Refiners Association. The defense sector is also interested in developing bio-degradable products including corrosion inhibitors for ships and as a component in explosives.

“These are additional markets for farmers through a whole range of diverse products when looking at the plant-based products industry,” said Gluek, adding that bio-based products provide the sustainable “circularity” that many large companies now require of the materials and processes used in their products. “Overall, this translates into consumer demand and additional market opportunities for farmers. That’s something that’s needed in the ag sector, with the uncertainty over trade challenges and some of the conflicts around the globe.”

PBPC survey data shows that over the past five years, 71 percent of consumers reported using products from plant based materials monthly, up from 50 percent in 2020, In addition, 86 percent have plans to purchase plant-based products in the future, with 79 percent indicating they’d be willing to pay more for a sustainably-produced product. The USDA currently estimates the biomass-based product industry’s worth at $489 billion, with around 4 million jobs created, according to Gluek.

Greg Jaffe, a former senior adviser for the USDA and president of Jaffe Policy Consulting, said the Trump administration is currently supportive of the biomanufacturing industry, primarily through three executive orders issued in 2025 under the banner of national security. These orders included two around energy and one around timber production.

“More recently we’ve seen that research priorities for 2027 would include this area (in order to) scale supply chains, build scalable universal manufacturing and support biological platforms in this area,” Jaffe said. The USDA and Department of Energy are expending resources around developing purpose-grown energy crops, he added.

“Biotechnology is still in what I consider a very nascent stage,” noted Sarah Glaven, a Princeton University energy expert and a former White House energy adviser. “At the foundation of biotechnology is research and development. We formed the National Bio-Economy Board during my time at the White House to coordinate all the federal department agencies that are responsible for supporting basic research to (address) biotechnology and biomanufacturing.”

In addition, current legislation before Congress would establish a permanent biotechnology coordination office in the executive office of the president, Glaven noted.

Farm Foundation forums, including this one, are archived at www.farmfoundations.org.