Aqua Grain: A New Life for Poor Soil

In a small arid corner of England, the company Aquagrain is developing a superabsorbent biodegradable hydrogel that can help crops grow on degraded lands. Aquagrain has become a finalist for the Food Planet Prize 2024.

Needham, United Kingdom – In one of the small workshops located in the vast industrial area of the tiny English village of Needham Market, a scientist is diligently working on a product to improve soil. This hydrogel, made from animal remains, can retain enough water to transform degraded areas into fertile fields. It may seem like something out of science fiction, but Dr. Arjomand Ghareghani, the inventor of Aquagrain, has patented a technology that combines waste from slaughterhouses and farms with a superabsorbent hydrocarbon that serves as a reservoir for plants.

This product can reduce the use of inorganic fertilizers and make it possible to grow food in areas of the planet that have become too dry and depleted for traditional agriculture. On a cold January day, Dr. Ghareghani meets me in his office, where he is developing his patented technology. There are no deserts in England, but in the eastern parts of the country, there are cities that receive less rainfall than the arid Andalusia.

The climate and limestone soils make the ground dry and sandy – it's the perfect place for testing a polymer capable of resisting desertification processes. One farmer who used Aquagrain during the company's trials immediately ordered 35 tons for his 70 hectares of grain fields. He described the difference between the plots sown with Aquagrain and those that were untreated as "walking on a black-and-white zebra."

Can Aquagrain become a viable solution to the problem of desertification?

Desertification, or the degradation of arid lands due to improper farming and overgrazing, along with climate change and the loss of biodiversity, is one of the most serious threats to our planet. This problem is not new – desertification has led to the disappearance of many civilizations throughout human history, starting with the Akkadians in Mesopotamia, who created the first empire over 4,300 years ago and then vanished, according to researchers, during a 300-year drought that destroyed the farmland they relied on to grow wheat and barley.

Currently, a multitude of factors has led to the increase in desertification of vast agricultural areas, including the use of synthetic fertilizers, rising global temperatures, and more frequent droughts, which have a catastrophic impact on food production. It is estimated that every year, 23 hectares of land are lost globally due to soil degradation (more than the average size of a farm in the EU, which is nearly 17 hectares). This amounts to 12 million hectares per year. However, desertification can be reversed.

Some of the main causes of desertification are related to the practices and products used by farmers, including:

• Excessive use of technology
• Plowing
• Chemicals

This can negatively affect the soil structure and its water retention capacity. Aquagrain acts like a water-retaining sponge – a gel-like substance saturated with moisture and nutrients that remains in the soil long enough for plants to thrive, preventing the leaching of nutrients from the ground.

Workers at the farm processing beds with Aquagrain at the Silal farm, which focuses on agronomic research and development. However, there is one problem: the production capacity in the industrial zone is only one ton per month. The next challenge for Dr. Ghareghani and Aquagrain is to increase production volumes, which is a costly process and requires significant investments.

In the industrial area where the small unit is located, there are no signs that this small space could be the key to transforming arid lands into fertile ones. On the left is a closed company that produces floorboards. A mechanic waves from the side as Dr. Ghareghani opens an inconspicuous white wooden door.

Inside, there are three small adjoining rooms: a kitchen, a laboratory, and an office. On one of the kitchen walls, a long and complex chemical equation is written. Behind it, in the laboratory area, the tables shine with cleanliness and are filled with glass test tubes, safety goggles, scales, and thermometers. But beneath the stainless steel block lies a dirty brown bucket: a hint at the darker side of the work. Behind the glass partition in the adjacent room, a small storage area has been transformed into a production laboratory with equipment used for vacuum drying.

Animal protein – transformed into brown pellets that farmers can plant in their fields. Here, Dr.

At the final stage of development, after passing through the grinding machine, it acquires a completely different consistency. The next day, Dr. Ghareghani will fly to the United Arab Emirates to meet with Paul Smith, who joined the parent company Aquagrain 11 years ago as the head of the development group, to prepare the company's products for investment.

It became harder to raise funds during the pandemic when international travel was restricted, and the UK government redirected DfID (Department for International Development) funding from Innovate UK, the UK's national innovation agency. Although Aquagrain was invented in England, the company had to seek investments outside the country.

Smith is currently managing a pilot project worth 2.3 million euros in Abu Dhabi, supported by a 25 million euro R&D fund owned by ADQ, an investment and holding company based in Abu Dhabi. The creator of Aquagrain, Arjomand Ghareghani, poses for a photo in a cabbage field in Al Ain.

Impact on food security

The UAE, one of the hottest and driest countries in the world, has been investing in innovations such as vertical farming and climate-resilient crops to ensure its own food supply since 2008, when a ban on rice exports from India caused panic and inflation in food prices. The federal government hopes that by 2050, half of the food consumed in the emirates will be produced locally (currently only 20 percent), which will provide protection against further food shocks caused by more frequent climate events affecting supply chains, from rice and wheat to herbs and flowers.

Aquagrain is capable of solving several tasks at once:

• Countering desertification
• Reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers that contribute to soil degradation.
• Reuse of waste from slaughterhouses

“In some developing countries, dead animals are discarded in the desert or sent to landfills, which can generate methane or contaminate groundwater,” Smith explains. The UAE, one of the hottest and driest countries in the world, has been investing in innovations such as vertical farming and climate-resilient crops to ensure its own food supply since 2008.

Smith sees broad prospects for the application of this technology worldwide, from Australia to California, as farmers strive to meet the requirements of water authorities that demand a reduction in water extraction from rivers. Aquagrain retains moisture 30 times its weight, binding the soil, which allows for a reduction in the amount of water needed for cultivation.

The company's trials show that it reduces the need for irrigation by 50%. Aquagrain is already collaborating with stakeholders, from farmers in Nigeria to supermarkets in the UK, who want to reuse fish waste for growing food and flowers.

Test results in Nigeria

In Nigeria, Professor Adnan Amin, an agronomist and bioengineer, works in areas of the country where farmers are completely abandoning their lands due to a significant decline in soil fertility, making cultivation impossible. Professor Amin, who has roots in farming and owns his own piece of land, conducts trials of Aquagrain with students as part of their educational process at Bayero University in Kano, in the northwest of Nigeria.

“Farmers are losing their livelihoods, which is why we insist on applying the principles of regenerative agriculture in the country. The use of organic mineral products, such as Aquagrain, is one of the components of this solution,” explains Professor Amin.

In January 2022, Professor Amin tested Aquagrain on corn and amaranth. The results were impressive: using a moderate amount of Aquagrain resulted in a yield that was 180 percent higher compared to tests without fertilizers. However, the cost of Aquagrain may be too high for farmers growing crops like cassava and sorghum, but Professor Amin sees its application for export crops such as organic peanuts and hibiscus, which can have significantly higher market prices.

The work crew uses rotary equipment to distribute Aquagrain at the root level before transplanting onions into the test beds. In the production facility in Nideam, Dr. Ghareghani opens a large white bag filled with brown granules, which surprisingly smells similar to dog food. These are animal by-products obtained from farms and slaughterhouses after processing and removal of all pathogens.

Dr. Ghareghani mixes this product with a superabsorbent polymer that decomposes in the soil after one growth cycle, leaving only organic matter. He opens the freezer behind the machines, where a cardboard box filled with a frozen mass of pink fish skeletons is stored. This is a delivery from a large supermarket chain in the UK called Morrisons, which aims to reduce waste at its fish processing plants in the northeast.

Dr. Ghareghani is working on a customized version of Aquagrain, ready to be tested by Morrisons soon, turning fish waste into fertilizers for ornamental plants and herbs. He hopes that trials in the UAE will help increase the production volumes of Aquagrain. The company is already in talks with neighboring countries about exporting its technology.

According to the UN, tensions are rising every year due to natural resources and the forced migration of farmers. "A project of this scale, which can reverse this process, will have a significant impact," he says.