Canola growers often consider canola meal to be a low-value byproduct of their crop.
That lack of seriousness about canola meal exists among many buyers, who mainly are concerned with the oil.
The Canola Council of Canada is trying to change that attitude, because the underappreciation of canola meal means the industry often leaves up to $40 US per tonne on the table when it sells canola.
When canola is crushed, about 60 percent is oil and 40 percent is meal.
Canola meal may have less relative value than oil, but it is the world’s second-most consumed vegetable meal feed. Only soybean meal is more heavily consumed.
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Sometimes the low value of canola meal means canola seed is priced out of the market in countries like China.
“We need to increase the value of canola meal,” said feedstock expert Dave Hickling of the canola council.
In Canada, livestock feeders often heavily discount canola meal. They consider it a poor replacement for soybean meal.
Overseas, canola meal often sells for less than its nutritional value because it is not treated as a valuable product.
In China, crushers commonly mix together canola meal and rapeseed meal, drastically lowering the value of the canola portion.
Rapeseed meal still has antinutritional components that were bred out of canola long ago.
That means a Chinese canola crusher gets $35-$45 US less than it should for every tonne of canola seed it crushes.
Because of that, Chinese canola crushers are only willing to pay $35-$45 per tonne less for canola than the usual spread between soybeans and canola.
“That’s the difference between being in the market and being out of the market,” said Hickling, who spoke to the Manitoba Canola Growers Association annual meeting Jan. 18.
The council is working with Chinese crushers to develop a segregated meal handling system that will allow canola to be sold for its true nutritional value. That should increase canola sales to China.
The council is also trying to get canola meal a fairer shake in the North American market by promoting it to the poultry and hog industries, and by making canola meal a better product.
Canola meal usually sells for less than 75 percent of the price for an equal weight of soybean meal. That’s because soybean meal contains about 25 percent more protein.
Because canola also has three times the fibre content of soybeans, and birds have trouble digesting fibrous food, canola meal bought by poultry producers is often priced at 65 percent of soybean meal.
Hickling said the council is encouraging hog and poultry producers to try canola meal.
It is also working with canola variety developers to produce seeds with less fibre that can be dehulled more effectively.
“We need to see if we can enhance the value of canola meal for poultry and hogs by reducing the fibre, increasing the protein and increasing the energy,” said Hickling.
The market will pay for enhanced value, Hickling said, which has been proven in the dairy industry.
Canola meal is worth more than 75 percent of the value of soybean meal for dairy producers because cattle digest it well.
Often in the United States, canola meal is sold for 80-85 percent of the value of soybean meal, and a few times in California it has even traded for more than 100 percent of the value of soybean meal, when canola supplies fell low.
