The manure comes from Murphy-Brown farms in the Carolinas,
ones owned by Smithfield Foods Inc. which is, in turn, owned by a Chinese
company.
The tobacco comes from Ttton BioEnergy which grows varieties
intended for biofuel production, not for smoking.
The manure is blended with harvested tobacco plants and
produces ethanol. It’s less likely to
draw the ire of critics than distilling corn to get ethanol to blend with
gasoline.
Smithfield and Tyton also will develop
applications for Tyton's tobacco-based biochar and activated carbon products,
which can be used for a wide-range of filtration, land remediation, and soil
amendment purposes.
Other research activities with Tyton
co-products will occur in parallel.
