Bridgestone Gets $35 Million Grant for Natural Rubber, Sustainable Agriculture

(Credit: Bridgestone)

Bridgestone has been awarded a $35 million grant to promote sustainable agriculture and expand its natural rubber production in the United States using the desert shrub guayule.

The grant from the Department of Agriculture will help Bridgestone expand natural rubber production in the southwestern US. Bridgestone says it will use the grant to attract more farmers to grow guayule and to help lower emissions, including through carbon sequestration, of its production.

The funds are part of the USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which was established to increase the production of sustainable goods, improve greenhouse gas emissions of those operations, and increase the opportunities for small and underserved producers. Bridgestone says it intends to recruit local and Native American growers as part of the financing.

Bridgestone has been using guayule in natural rubber production since 2012 when it built a guayule processing and research center in Mesa, Arizona, and has invested more than $100 million to commercialize the shrub. The tire company also has a 281-acre guayule farm in Eloy, Arizona, and says it plans to plant 350 more acres in 2023.

Earlier this year, Bridgestone committed to investing $42 million more by 2030 toward the expansion of guayule production. It hopes to increase the crop’s capacity by up to 25,000 acres.

Guayule is a heat-tolerant, woody shrub that thrives in desert settings, especially in the desert southwest of the US. The plant contains latex that can be used for rubber production. Guayule can be harvested in as little as two years after planting and is also being studied as a source for biofuels.

It can be farmed with as little as half the water needed to grow existing crops farmed in the region such as cotton and alfalfa. Water optimization is part of Bridgestone’s goal with the grant, especially as water is scarce in the region and the Colorado River Basin begins operating on Tier 2 water shortage status in January 2023.

Bridgestone, which has a goal to use all sustainable materials by 2050, produced its first tire made from guayule-produced natural rubber in 2015. Race tires containing the materials in their sidewalls took part in the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix in Nashville in August 2022.

Natural sources have been a focus of making sustainable tires across the industry. Goodyear, for example, is developing a tire made from natural rubber produced from dandelions and also has made a bus tire with soil bean oil.

Bridgestone’s USDA grant will be dispersed over a five-year period and is designed to reduce costs for guayule farmers. The company will also use the funds to help educate and incentivize farmers on sustainable practices and reduce its carbon impact to zero, including encouraging carbon sequestration in desert soils.

Additional partners in the $35 million guayule climate-smart grant include the University of Arizona, Colorado State University, OpenET, Environmental Defense Fund, Tohono O’odham Nation and Colorado River Indian Tribes, and eight regional growers. The grant is part of the initial phase of the USDA program, which includes up to $2.8 billion for 70 sustainable agriculture projects across the country.