The bioeconomy applies modern biotechnology and other advanced biosciences with natural resources to produce a wide range of products, including chemicals, fuels, pharmaceuticals, and traditional food and fiber. It provides employment opportunities in the rural sector, including the Central Valley, and addresses food security challenges, biodiversity loss, and resilience to climate shocks. Berkeley should be a global center of bioeconomy research and policy. It is a land-grant university with excellence in natural sciences, engineering, information science, and policy disciplines, making it unrivaled for this task. The Berkeley bioeconomy program will benefit from the tradition of multidisciplinary collaboration, the capacity to assume responsibility for major social challenges, and a substantial cooperative extension and outreach program. However, the expansion of research activities in Berkeley is limited by land availability, which may restrict the development of the bioeconomy program.
One of the major assets of the campus is the Richmond Field Station. It is a diamond in the rough. About 50 years ago, when I did my dissertation on animal waste management, I learned about Professor Bill Oswald’s pioneering research on the use of algae for waste management and the production of valuable products, and I was introduced to the Richmond Field Station. It has relatively vast land and some nice facilities, but mostly it is underdeveloped. Over time, it could augment the campus by providing space for bioeconomy activities and other emerging areas. Visiting there recently, I thought about some of the major activities it can support. One of the challenges of the bioeconomy is the ability to monitor and approach different locations over space, in fields, and water. These activities are likely to be done by drone. Richmond has already established the foundation for better development and utilizing drones. The envisioned research agenda for the bioeconomy emphasizes the growing role of wood and wood products in construction and other activities. Wood stores carbon and can replace polluting concrete as a building material. The Richmond Station has a wood product lab that can and should be expanded to become a center for research and extension. These activities can take advantage of the Rausser College’s forestry program, the immense capacity of the College of Engineering, and the talents of the College of Environmental Design.
One of the major components of the bioeconomy is biomanufacturing, producing fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other products using plants and other organisms. The Richmond Station can host greenhouses and other facilities, providing opportunities to faculty, students, and the private sector to set a foundation for innovation and the sustainable production of valuable products. It can provide the foundation for frontiers in biomanufacturing and experimentation with digital twins connecting living and digital systems. The Richmond Field Station has structures that can host the International Bioeconomy Macroalgae Center. The plan is to establish an algae botanical collection and associated labs, which will take resources and time. Still, more importantly, the center’s access to the Bay will allow us to conduct research in the waters, which is essential for an algae center. When the Field Station was in hibernation, there might have been other plans to utilize the access to the water. Still, the best benefit for the environment and campus is to use the beach and water for algae and other marine research. Finally, the bioeconomy will see the revival of forest products as a building material and energy source. Berkeley’s forest product lab in Richmond has had a great past, but it needs to be revived and become a major campus asset so it will have an even bigger future.
Strengthening bioeconomy research in Berkeley will require new facilities and strategic hiring. The strengths of our Engineering, Chemistry, and Natural Resource faculty are a great foundation. In the IGI and EBI, we have a unique organization that can push the capacity of life science forward and provide both creativity and capacity for creative initiative. Still, we will need to strengthen our expertise in the biology, cultivation, and processing of algae, in managing organisms as black soldier flies, in alternative approaches to wood products, in multiple directions for carbon sequestration that the bioeconomy can provide, and in the design of the supply chain. This requires FTEs in RCNR, Engineering, Chemistry, and others. Some are research positions, and the others are extensions. All need to be new hires; people retire. I hope that will be replaced by economics and supply chain rather than mainstream agricultural or environmental economics. I’m sure that in other schools, we can expand our existing capability to address bioeconomy opportunities. Then, there are opportunities in the private sector. The Richmond field station can be used for collaborative efforts with the private sector and having two or three extension specialists working on the bioeconomy (say one on macroalgae, the other on recycling and waste management, and third on creative supply chain economics and management) with collaboration with farm advisors and the private sector can help revive the Central Valley and create new opportunities for jobs and entrepreneurship. Everyone is fascinated by artificial intelligence and the bioeconomy can take advantage of it and create more jobs and products for people, so let’s go for it and take advantage of our capacity in Richmond.