Outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, rows of dandelions are in bloom. Looking out on the field, the average person might see an overgrowth of pesky weeds in need of picking. But to a certain team of growers and researchers, the bounty of flowers represents opportunity. That’s because they can see beyond the yellow flower-studded landscape and below the surface, where dandelion roots that ooze a sticky, milky sap that’s proving to be a viable – and valuable – rubber substitute are growing.
Natural rubber is an essential raw material used to produce more than 40,000 products, including tires, mattresses, shoe soles and surgical gloves. A vast majority of the world’s supply of natural latex is commercially produced from Hevea brasiliensis rubber trees, which are native to the Amazon basin and require labour-intensive monitoring and tapping during harvest. Today, more than 90% of the world’s natural rubber comes from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, an area that has battled extreme flooding, droughts and plant diseases in recent years, causing some experts to speculate that we could soon face a global rubber shortage.
But what if the world’s supply of rubber wasn’t so dependent on one corner of the world? That’s what dandelion researchers are working to find out – and what the U.S. government is betting big on.
Last spring, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company launched a multimillion-dollar research effort supported by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and BioMADE, a plant-based synthetic biotechnology company. The multi-year project focuses on a species of dandelion known scientifically as Taraxacum kok-saghyz – TK for short – which is native to Eastern Europe and China. Slightly smaller than the common dandelion, TK dandelions also differ in their ability to produce large amounts of natural rubber in their roots – a rubber that has a molecular structure and mechanical properties comparable to the kind harvested from traditional rubber trees. But unlike rubber trees, which must be at least five to seven years old to produce the latex needed for rubber production, the dandelions can be planted and harvested every six months. Because they can be grown on U.S. turf, that dramatically cuts the carbon footprint of transporting the material from Asia. The widespread adoption of dandelion-rubber-based tires could also alleviate the pollution caused by synthetic tires shedding microplastics into the environment as they wear down.
If they can be grown to scale, TK dandelions have the potential to launch a robust, resilient and bio-based U.S. rubber industry, helping the country become more self-sufficient. “Given the current demand for natural rubber and possible future supply chain issues, there is a compelling need for a domestic source,” says Barry Burton, a program manager at AFRL. “Successful completion of this project will pave the way for wider-spread adoption of domestic natural rubber as a replacement.”
Of course, the U.S. government’s interest in growing a more sustainable domestic economy extends far beyond these rubber-producing flowers. Valued at nearly $1 trillion (all figures in U.S. dollars), the country’s bioeconomy accounts for more than 5% of U.S. gross domestic product, which is more than the contribution from the construction industry. For the last two decades, consumers have been driving demand for more bio-manufactured products, which involves using plants and other renewable agriculture-, marine- and forestry-derived materials and by-products to produce everything from plant-based burgers and natural food dyes to recyclable bioplastics and biofuels.
“In consumer products, where people are going to the grocery store and picking things off the shelf, there is absolutely a driver for bio-based and natural [products],” says Dan Derr, an executive advisor for consumer care at Integrity BioChem, a company that specializes in developing bio-based surfactants (surface-active agents used in personal care), as well as in agriculture, mining and other markets. He’s seen the widespread desire to get away from products that contain plastics and petroleum-derived chemicals take off in the last five to seven years.
Since the pandemic started in 2020, there has been a wave of investment going toward building up the biotech and other bio-based industries in the U.S. Recognizing that it has relied too heavily on imports, the federal government is desperate to foster its bioeconomy.
Last September, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to support the development of a U.S.-centred supply chain for the thriving biomanufacturing industry, joining previous orders for domestically manufactured semiconductors and electric vehicles. Called the National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative (NBBI), it opens up more than $2 billion in funding aimed at strengthening supply chains and lowering prices, expanding domestic production of bio-made goods, and spurring more opportunities for the country’s agricultural industry.
Biden’s latest initiative may seem like just another way to drum up popular support by pushing U.S.-made products. After all, agencies like the DoD and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are already legally mandated to procure American-made goods, products and materials if they are available. And the Department of Agriculture’s BioPreferred Program, created in 2002 and expanded by the 2018 Farm Bill, aims to increase the purchase and use of bio-based materials in order to reduce the country’s reliance on petroleum to the benefit of American farmers.
But from a global perspective, the United States is a relative newcomer to the bioeconomy game and has a lot of catching up to do. Canada, which still lacks a comprehensive national bioeconomy strategy, is even further behind. In 2012, Germany and the United Kingdom became some of the first nations in the world to develop roadmaps for building a high-value bioeconomy. China’s heavy investment in its biotechnology, biopharma and bioenergy industries has led it to become one of the U. S.’s biggest competitors. Other countries have also invested heavily in their bio-based industries, with Israeli start-ups focused on cultivated meat production and agritech innovations and Singapore positioning itself to become a leader in biomedical research, all while U.S. public investment in scientific research and development has been on the decline for decades.
Up until 10 years ago, the U.S. accounted for almost half of all biotechnology patents filed worldwide, a position it’s struggled to maintain as the global biotech industry has rapidly expanded. According to one estimate, China alone has invested more than $100 billion into the biotech sector.
Can the NBBI’s $2 billion in funding really help the American biomanufacturing industry catch up with its global competitors? And even if the U.S. is finally getting serious about growing its bioeconomy, will the investment make an impactful difference on the environment? After all, just because a product is classified as bio-based doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for the planet. Displacing food crops to grow Roundup Ready corn for biofuel and burning trees as an energy source are prime examples of how contentious bio-based products can be.
Biden’s executive order speaks generally about mitigating climate change by reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and petrochemicals and mentions that bioproducts could be more sustainable than traditional crops. But it focuses more on strengthening local supply chains and bringing more bioproducts to market than it does on measuring the carbon emissions associated with doing so. Japan and the European Union have been much more explicit about connecting their bioeconomy strategies with a sustainable and circular economy that operates in a closed loop.
“If it stimulates manufacturing in the U.S., if it means things cost a little less, makes us less reliant on other nations, and it increases [interest, funding and diversity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)], then great,” says Christopher Reddy, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who studies marine pollution and petroleum geochemistry and develops natural products for the cosmetic industry.
Beyond growing the value of its bioeconomy, the U.S. government has another vested interest in producing more bio-made products stateside: national security. Derr, who worked with biofuels for two decades before moving into the surfactant industry, points to the DoD’s interest in renewable fuels around 2005 as an example. “It became clear right around that time that if the United States wanted to, we could develop all of our transportation fuel from renewable-grown energy here,” he says. “What the Department of Defense sees when they hear that is ‘Oh, we don’t have to protect shipping lanes from the Middle East anymore in order to have fuel to fly our jet fighters. And if we can grow it here, that’ll mean we won’t have to burn up as much jet fuel, right?’”
Now, nearly 20 years later, the DoD is buying into the promise that the country can someday meet its own demand for rubber tires – all from a type of dandelion that, unlike rubber trees, thrives on American soil.
It might be too early to say whether American investments like this will pay off. But it’s not all for nothing. “Even if [the investment in growing the American bioeconomy is] a net-negative, we end up being less reliant and we’re training more next-generation scientists and engineers,” says Reddy. “And that has clearly been shown to be good for an economy.”
Shelby Vittek is a New York–based journalist who writes about food, wine and agriculture.
