Plant Now. Manufacture Later.
Alabama’s next manufacturing material might need harvesting before it needs machining. A regional initiative is betting that tall grasses can connect underused farmland with factories producing car components, food packaging and, possibly, the pavement beneath your tires.
The NSF BRIDGES Engine, spanning Alabama and Tennessee, has been selected for up to $160 million in National Science Foundation funding over 10 years. Led by HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, it aims to turn locally grown crops into materials that manufacturers can use.
The economic question is where the value goes after harvest. Selling raw crops is one transaction. Processing those crops and manufacturing finished products can support additional businesses and paychecks. BRIDGES aims to keep more of that activity in and around the rural communities supplying the material.
According to Auburn University’s account of the project, the effort targets farmers in 45 Alabama counties and 35 Tennessee counties. Its goals include establishing 50,000 acres of switchgrass and miscanthus, potentially generating $30 million in annual farm income. The broader ambition is roughly $2 billion in private investment and more than 4,000 manufacturing and supply chain jobs.
Those are targets, with plenty of work between an announcement and a payroll. Growers need dependable buyers. Manufacturers need dependable supplies. Communities need workers prepared for the jobs companies might bring. Auburn researchers identify those connections as central to making the idea work beyond the laboratory.
One test of that proposition will involve something Alabama drivers encounter daily. At Auburn’s National Center for Asphalt Technology, researchers will investigate whether lignin extracted from the grasses can replace part of the petroleum-based binder in asphalt.
The assignment is practical: determine which lignin fractions work with conventional binders, then test mixtures for cracking, rutting and moisture durability. A promising plant ingredient still has to hold up as pavement. The road gets a vote.
NCAT’s facilities include a 1.7-mile test track where pavement technologies face real traffic conditions. Its research offers a concrete example of the distance BRIDGES must cover, from growing a crop to proving that a manufacturer or transportation agency can use it.
For rural Alabama, the opportunity depends on completing that journey locally. Success would mean income from the field alongside jobs turning its harvest into finished goods. The acreage matters, but so does the address of the factory that buys what grows there.
Explore businesses across the state in the Guide to Alabama manufacturing directory: https://www.guidetoalabama.com/manufacturing