NISKU, Alta. – If the Alberta government was willing to spend billions to develop the oilsands projects, it should also invest in the creation of biofuels.
“We did it for our oilsands, we can do it for our farmers,” said Alberta agriculture minister Doug Horner at the Wild Rose Agricultural Producers annual meeting Jan. 10.
Horner favours developing a biofuel industry in this oil-rich province as a form of value adding to benefit rural Alberta.
Provincial investment would attract private interest.
He said he is talking with his cabinet colleagues to develop this industry.
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“We’re going to be working on how we can do that, whether it is a nine-cent-a-litre fuel tax or something else. We need to come up with a biofuel strategy to attract that investment.”
Wild Rose members agreed and passed several resolutions to investigate developing a biofuel industry from prairie grain and oilseeds as well as animal fat. One resolution suggested lobbying federal and provincial governments to legislate that biodiesel make up 10 percent of the Canadian diesel supply by 2010.
“Any alternate use of grain in the world is a benefit for us. The more that is used, the better our prices,” said member Hartmann Nagel.
Another set of resolutions addressed the loss of researchers working on grains and oilseeds projects. Several government scientists are close to retirement age. Both levels of government seem slow to find replacement staff for a smooth transition
“When a researcher is retiring, it takes him a year to wind all the projects down and we lose a year,” said delegate John Zienstra.
Further continuity in projects is lost when new people are not brought in quickly.
John Sloan moved a resolution asking for greater government commitment to agriculture research.
He said the decline of public agriculture research projects encourages private companies to contribute large amounts to research.
However, farmers are often required to purchase private companies’ seeds and complementary herbicides at higher prices, which reduces the choices of farmers.
