Slumping grain prices a few years ago prompted David Rourke to look for new ways to maximize profits, eventually leading him into the burgeoning business of ethanol production.
“Things weren’t too rosy on the grain farms, and we were all looking for other alternatives to make our farms work,” said Rourke, owner of Hog Hill Farms Ltd. near Minto, Man., and president of Ag-Quest, the largest contract agriculture research facility in Western Canada.
With this in mind, he diversified into hog finishing, building 24 straw-based hoop barns, from which he sells 15,000 pigs each year. Once he receives approval for a planned expansion, he expects to add another 12,000 finishers.
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“It’s been able to add an average $20 per hog to our bottom line,” he said. “It’s a very good model. Also, it’s very neighbour friendly.”
In recent years, Rourke Farms, a 2,400-acre grain operation that he also owns, had been struggling to produce enough winter wheat and barley to feed the pigs. To make up the shortfall, he imported corn meal and tapped a supply of frozen Saskatchewan wheat.
“We decided to build an on-farm ethanol plant in conjunction with our feed mill so that we could put the distillers grains back into the hogs.”
In 1996, on a visit to Germany, he toured an on-farm ethanol plant and on a return visit in 2000 heard that the number of such operations had exploded to 600 in that country.
Inspired by the success of small-scale ethanol in Germany, he decided to try to adapt the model to his own operation.
He is now about one month away from starting production in the 36 by 60 foot building that houses the new sideline venture, Minto Ethanol.
Rourke said 50,000 bushels of feed wheat will be used to produce 500,000 litres of fuel grade ethanol per year. The distillers grain will be fed to his hogs at a 10 to 15 percent inclusion rate.
“Overall, we think we can increase net profit on our farm using an integrated approach by $500,000 to $600,000 per year,” he said.
An agreement between the Manitoba government and Husky Energy requires the company to give market access to small producers. Rourke said an arrangement with Husky, which operates a 130 million litre ethanol plant in Minnedosa, Man., helps make his microplant viable.
The grain is milled in a feed mill adjacent to the ethanol plant. It is then transferred inside and placed in a cooker for a day, along with three enzymes that convert the starch into sugar. Because he has opted to remove the fibre and protein before the fermentation stage, a vibrating sieve and a screw press separates the solids that are dried using waste heat from the distillation process.
“That amount that goes in, goes back into the hog barns,” he said.
The sugar solution goes into the fermenters, where yeast is added. The resulting liquid, which at about 10 percent ethanol now resembles beer, then goes through stripper and rectifier columns that use heat to remove the ethanol from the water in a reflux process. At this point, the ethanol is up to 95 percent pure.
In case anyone might be tempted to tipple the finished product, Rourke said the toxic fusel oils created in the distillation process – a traditional enemy of moonshiners – are added back in because they burn well.
“We kind of destroy the taste right away, so that shouldn’t be an issue with anyone, we hope,” he said.
The ethanol then runs through molecular sieves, which bump the concentration to 99.5 percent, before it is pumped into storage tanks.
“If the Canadian taxpayers want to invest in cleaner air, this is a better way of making ethanol than a lot of the larger plants,” he said, adding that using local grain means less trucking. Also, the distillers grain co-product is consumed by his hogs, eliminating another trip in a truck.
“From an environmental perspective, it’s a very good plant.”
Initially, electric boilers will be used, but methane will replace them once a composting system for the hog manure is developed, making the system even more ecologically friendly.
When he started thinking about building an ethanol plant, the engineering firms he approached priced the project at $1 million. To keep the cost under $500,000, he based it on a design from California that won an award in 1983 for best on-farm ethanol plant.
With ethanol demand south of the border driving grain prices up, a replacement animal feed must be found, said Rourke, who is also a director with the Western Feed Grain Development Co-op.
“We are missing a spring cereal that we can grow consistently and can count on that is suitable for livestock and ethanol production.”
The co-op, formed in 2005, hopes to increase its membership with the goal of developing and promoting high-yielding feed wheat varieties for industrial use.
Dedicated feed wheat is prohibited for sale because of the risk of it entering the grain handling system. By limiting distribution of such a crop to members, he said, the legal obstacles could be avoided.
