This tri-county region may not be attractive enough to lure the necessary capital that can build a successful bio-manufacturing industry.

The Central Valley in California, more specifically the tri-county region spanning San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced counties, are economic powerhouses with respect to their agricultural commodities and outputs. As identified by the Brookings Institute’s report, The Stanislaus 2030 Investment Blueprint, this locality offers a potential abundance of untapped agricultural resources in the form of residual biomass. Their argument is that organic refuse, byproducts from agricultural harvesting and processing of target commodities, provides possible raw materials for fostering a burgeoning bio-manufacturing industry where one does not currently exist. A primary distinction and subsequent core premise behind this argument is the fact that this tri-county region would share close adjacency to requisite bio-inputs. However, proximity to potential and speculative resources may not be a sufficient magnet to draw social, political, financial, material, experiential, and intellectual capital to this region for their stated goals.