Future of Agriculture Podcast: Is This 'Super Tree' The Future of Bioenergy and Plant-Based Protein?
For the past 15 years, today’s guest: Naveen Sikka, has been working to commercialize the pongamia tree. There are several things that are special about this emerging crop. First, it’s a legume, so like soybeans, peas, lentils, chickpeas and other legumes, the plant forms symbiotic relationships with nitrogen fixing bacteria, so in short, it can fix its own nitrogen from the atmosphere. Although the crop does still require some fertilizer - just a fraction of what is required for a lot of other crops. Also like other legumes, the beans are very high in oil and protein. But unlike those crops it’s a tree, which can have benefits in terms of productivity, soil health, and adaptability to certain parts of the world. So you have this supertree, that is a nitrogen fixer that is a perennial and adapted to both periods of flooding and periods of drought, and most of all it produces a versatile and nutrient dense crop. Naveen’s going to share a whole lot more about pongamia, but I wanted to start with answering, why is all of this effort worthwhile?
And it is indeed a lot of effort. Naveen and his team are having to attack this from every angle to turn this tree into a viable commercial crop: developing genetics, growing practices, markets, processing, attracting interest from farmers, and educating potential consumers just to name a few. But they’re making real progress, and I find their commitment to the cause to be inspiring and certainly helpful to all of us hoping to make real contributions to the ag industry.
