News

Interest building in central Illinois ag tech hub

Interest is building in a newly designated central Illinois ag tech hub.                 

The Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing (iFAB) Tech Hub earlier this year received a $51 million Economic Development Administration (EDA) implementation grant.  Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski tells Brownfield…

“One of the things I hear about from my farmers is they want access and the creation of new markets.”  She says, “That’s exactly what’s happening here.”

Eric Smith, with EDA, says iFAB is one of only twelve projects across the country to be selected for funding.

“This is an industry that we see as critical from a supply chain resilience perspective,” he says.

Budzinski says it’s an example of a beneficial public/private partnership.

“We believe if it is fully realized, it will be a $200 billion industry in Central Illinois that is brand new,” she says.

Local economic development officials say they’ve already received over $2.5 billion dollars’ worth of requests for information from prospective companies.

The grant funding will be split between the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Lab at the U of I, ADM, Primient, and Synonym to expand central Illinois research and production facilities. The iFAB consortium is led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Brownfield spoke with both during a tour of the U of I’s Integrated Bioprocessing Research Lab.