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By Elisha Chebwawaza Gideon
At the end of a harvest, farmers often see banana stems and pineapple leaves as little more than agricultural leftovers—materials to be abandoned, burned or left to decompose.
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Japanese biotechnology company Peel Lab sees something very different: a potential source of income, sustainable industrial materials and an entirely new circular-economy value chain.
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At GITEX Nigeria 2026, the company showcased its approach to transforming agricultural residues into materials that can be used in fabrics, leather alternatives, geotextiles and other industrial applications.
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For Peel Lab CEO Jim Huang, the idea can be summed up in four words: “turn your trash to cash.”
From Banana Stems to Sustainable Materials
Speaking to IT Edge News on the sidelines of GITEX Nigeria, Huang explained that Peel Lab has developed proprietary technology for extracting fibres from agricultural materials that farmers would otherwise discard.
“What we do is we extrapolate the fibre inside the banana stems or the pineapple leaves that the farmers are throwing away,” Huang said.
The extracted fibres are then processed using the company’s technology and chemistry to create new materials.
“With the fibre, we have our own technology and chemistry to turn it into fabric, leather and geotextile,” he added.
The proposition goes beyond finding an alternative to conventional materials. It is an attempt to create economic value from something that currently has little or no commercial value for many farmers.
Banana cultivation, for example, generates substantial quantities of stems after the fruit is harvested. Pineapple farming similarly leaves behind large volumes of leaves.
Instead of allowing those residues to remain outside the formal economy, Peel Lab wants to bring them into a new manufacturing ecosystem.
The Farmers Are at the Centre of the Model
The technology may be sophisticated, but Huang said Peel Lab’s biggest challenge is surprisingly human: convincing farmers to believe in the value of what they have traditionally considered waste.
“The biggest challenge, I think, is to get the farmers to be agreeable to work with us because this is such a new frontier market,” he said.
For farmers unfamiliar with the emerging biomaterials industry, the proposition can initially sound too good to be true.
“The farmers have no knowledge on what is the possibility that’s out there, and so they’re very skeptical on whether or not this is a scam,” Huang explained.
That scepticism highlights one of the less-discussed challenges facing circular-economy businesses. Creating a new value chain is not simply about developing technology; it requires changing perceptions, building trust and demonstrating that previously overlooked resources can generate measurable economic returns.
Peel Lab is therefore attempting to position its proposition not merely as an environmental intervention, but as an opportunity to improve farmers’ livelihoods.
“What we’re trying to tell them is this is innovation. This is innovation that will improve their lives and the environment,” Huang said.
Where Agriculture Meets Biotechnology
The company’s model illustrates how biotechnology and materials science could reshape the relationship between agriculture and manufacturing.
Instead of a linear system in which crops are harvested, consumed and their residues discarded, Peel Lab is working towards a more circular model in which agricultural by-products become inputs for another industry.
The potential applications are broad.
Fibres derived from agricultural waste could eventually find their way into bags, clothing, textiles, leather alternatives, construction materials and geotextiles, creating connections between farmers, manufacturers, designers and technology companies.
For agricultural economies such as Nigeria, where large quantities of crop residues are generated every year, the model also raises a bigger question: what if agricultural waste could become an industrial asset?
That possibility could create new revenue streams while helping industries reduce their dependence on resource-intensive conventional materials.
Peel Lab Looks to AI to Make Sustainable Production Cheaper
Peel Lab is not stopping at biotechnology.
The company is also exploring artificial intelligence and machine learning as tools to make its production processes more efficient and commercially scalable.
Huang said the company was actively seeking partnerships around AI innovation, particularly technologies that could reduce costs, improve processes and increase production capacity.
“We’re definitely looking for AI innovation to help us get to the next stage of efficiency, such as issuing carbon credit, such as using machine learning to enhance our processes, lower our cost and increase our scale,” he said.
This is where Peel Lab’s proposition intersects with one of the dominant conversations at GITEX Nigeria 2026: the growing role of AI in transforming traditional industries.
For the company, AI is not simply about automation. Machine learning could potentially help optimise processing, improve resource efficiency and provide better data for measuring the environmental benefits of converting agricultural waste into new materials.
Could Carbon Credits Add Another Revenue Stream?
The carbon market represents another potential dimension of Peel Lab’s model.
If agricultural residues that would otherwise be discarded can be converted into durable products, the environmental benefits could potentially be quantified and incorporated into carbon-credit frameworks, subject to applicable standards and verification requirements.
For Peel Lab, technology could play an important role in measuring and documenting those environmental outcomes.
That could create an additional economic layer around the circular-economy model: farmers could potentially earn from agricultural residues, manufacturers could access alternative raw materials, and environmental benefits could become measurable assets.
The challenge, however, will be developing credible measurement, reporting and verification systems capable of demonstrating those benefits at scale.
Looking for Farmers, Manufacturers and Government
Peel Lab’s expansion ambitions will require a broad network of partners.
The company is looking for organisations with access to farmers, agricultural land, manufacturing capacity and sustainability-focused investment.
“The partnerships that we’re looking for are people who are interested in sustainability, who have access to farmers, to agriculture, to land and to manufacturing,” Huang said.
Government is another important piece of the puzzle.
Huang said Peel Lab was interested in working with policymakers to develop frameworks that could support sustainable manufacturing and facilitate implementation at the local level.
“We love to get connected with the government at the policy level so they can support us from framework guidance, even support on the ground,” he added.
Such partnerships could be particularly important in emerging markets, where the infrastructure required to aggregate agricultural residues, transport them and process them at scale may not yet exist.
Nigeria’s Untapped Agricultural Waste Opportunity
Peel Lab’s presence at GITEX Nigeria comes at a time when the country’s technology conversation is increasingly moving beyond connectivity and digital services towards the use of innovation to solve physical-economy challenges.
Nigeria’s large agricultural sector produces substantial quantities of crop residues, creating a potentially significant feedstock base for businesses exploring bio-based materials.
The opportunity is not simply about waste management.
It is about connecting agriculture, biotechnology, manufacturing, climate technology and AI into a new industrial value chain.
If successfully developed, such models could help farmers earn additional income from materials previously considered worthless, while giving Nigerian manufacturers access to locally sourced alternatives to conventional raw materials.
It could also contribute to a broader transition towards a circular economy in which economic growth does not necessarily depend on continuously extracting new resources.
From Waste to a New Industrial Value Chain
Peel Lab’s proposition ultimately challenges the traditional definition of waste.
A banana stem may look worthless after harvest. A pineapple leaf may appear to have no purpose once the fruit has been collected. But biotechnology can reveal value hidden inside those materials.
That is the larger significance of Peel Lab’s approach.
The company is attempting to build a bridge between the farm and the factory—one in which agricultural residues become raw materials, farmers become participants in new industrial markets, manufacturers gain access to alternative materials and technology helps make sustainable production economically viable.
GITEX Nigeria 2026 provided Peel Lab with an opportunity to find partners capable of helping turn that proposition into a scalable business model.
And Huang’s message to potential partners is deliberately simple: turn waste into wealth, improve livelihoods and protect the environment at the same time.
