Mr. Muyila Stanford (Republic of Malawi), a second-year student in the Master’s Program in Life Science and Agriculture of the Graduate School of Animal Husbandry from the ABE initiative program, was awarded the Young Scientist Award at the 7th Japan-China-Korea Grassland Conference held in Sapporo from Sunday, July 8 to Tuesday, July 10.
His study was titled, “Effect of pre-treatment method (autoclaving and pasteurization) on the nutritive value of bagasse incubated with white-rot fungi.” One of the methods for increasing the nutritional value of animal feed containing a lot of lignin such as straw is a technology using white-rot fungi (edible mushroom). However, sterilization equipment (autoclave) is required for using this technology. In developing countries, lack of such equipment has hindered the further spread of this technology. Mr. Stanford has therefore been exploring alternatives to the equipment in order to promote the technology for improving the nutritional value of straw by using white-rot fungi in many countries, including his home country of Malawi. As a result, he has revealed that the process of steaming by boiling water has the same effect as sterilization.
Mr. Stanford expressed his wishes for the future, saying, “I would like to develop even more convenient processing technology in the future and contribute to the promotion of technology for improving the nutritive value of straw by using white-rot fungi.”
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- Mr. Stanford (third from the left)
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- Mr. Stanford receiving the award
