USDA grants $35 million to Bridgestone to up guayule production

NASHVILLE—Bridgestone Americas Inc., the largest rubber products maker in North America, continues its push to develop guayule as an alternative to hevea natural rubber.

The journey that began in 2012 for the world's second-largest tire maker just saw another $35 million infusion, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the grant Nov. 16.

"At Bridgestone, we have been committed to guayule as a domestic source of natural rubber since our research initiative in this desert shrub began ... to offer a more sustainable solution for both our environment and economy," said William Niaura, director of sustainable materials and circular economy for Bridgestone Americas. "By participating in this larger industry-wide initiative led by the USDA, we can continue our commitment to establishing a natural rubber industry domestically in a climate-smart way alongside other industry thought leaders who are similarly dedicated to sustainable commodity production that will provide meaningful benefits for domestic growers."

The climate-smart grant—issued by the USDA under the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Initiative—will expand Bridgestone's guayule production in the Southwestern U.S., using lowered greenhouse gas emissions and creating regional jobs for farmers and Native American tribes to build this rubber bioeconomy in the water-starved region.

Bridgestone was awarded the $35 million grant as part of the first pool of partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities funding.

It will be dispersed by the USDA over a 5-year period between 2023 and 2027. Bridgestone said it will use the money to attract more farmers and educate them on best practices in sustainability, essentially agricultural practices "to help enable carbon sequestration in desert soils, water utilization, soil health, and nutrient delivery and ecological benefits of guayule."

Bridgestone also has received grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (July 2017) and from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (September 2021) toward its guayule research.

Partnerships in the effort to commercialize guayule include the University of Arizona, Colorado State University, OpenET, Environmental Defense Fund, Tohono O'odham Nation and Colorado River Indian Tribes, along with eight regional growers.

And the stakes are high.

While Bridgestone will look to commercialize guayule as a viable source of domestic NR by the end of the decade, the company is sticking to its commitment to use 100-percent all sustainable materials in its products by 2050.

Other major tire makers, like Goodyear, are targeting the Russian dandelion as an alternative source for NR, while others are maintaining an all-of-the-above approach.

Nokian has focused primarily on the Parthenium argentatum variety guayule, exploring best practices for cultivating it—what fertilizers work best, for instance. Last year, researchers there were able to manage the crop without the use of synthetic biocides, a major step toward more sustainable harvesting.

Hevea NR, which comes from the Brasiliensis tree, must be grown within plus or minus 10 degrees of the equator—and these latitudes represent the world's only geographic source of the prized material.

To date, no synthetic rubber has been produced that can mimic the properties that NR imparts to rubber products.

As such, the lack of a domestic source of NR has the attention of the best in rubber research and development, both in the manufacturing and the government sectors.

Some experts have gone as far as to call the lack of a domestic supply a national defense issue.

Bridgestone has invested more than $100 million and a decade of research in the drought-resistant desert shrub, seeking to understand its potential to replace hevea rubber in the tire manufacturing process.

The tire maker has made significant strides in its use and understanding of the alternative natural rubber. And among its successes is the guayule-based Firehawk racing tire, which will be made alongside all the other Firehawk tires at the new Akron plant.

In August, Bridgestone announced its own $42 million investment in the arid shrub and its march toward sustainability, money that will increase its Mesa, Ariz., growing location by 25,000 acres.

The company continues to operate the Mesa tract in addition to a 281-acre guayule farm in Eloy, Arizona.

And most recently, the company announced it is expanding the number of local farmers with whom it partners in Central Arizona and is eyeing 350 new acres of guayule to be planted in 2023.

Bridgestone is bolstering its efforts for the plant's commercialization and research partnerships, central to its goals of rolling out a 100-percent sustainable materials tire and achieving carbon neutral operations by 2050.

Those partnership have only increased with the most recent $35 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Bridgestone said the guayule initiative aligns with its E8 Commitment, which comprises eight values.