Bagging, cleaning and handling canaryseed can be a hairy experience.
But the Canadian special crops industry might be able to steal market
share away from competitors based on the hairiness factor, said the
executive director of the Canadian Special Crops Association.
Francois Catellier said a number of promising hairless canaryseed
varieties are in the pipeline right now.
“We hope that it’s going to create a preference for this type of seed
over time,” said Catellier.
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“We hope that if people have the choice between Canada and Argentina
and other sources, that they’re going to pick Canada’s because it’s a
nicer product. It’s much more user-friendly.”
It might also be possible to turn canaryseed into a human food product.
Right now canaryseed is unpleasant to handle. The seed’s hairs are
painful to “anyone who’s handling it, whether it’s a farmer who’s
harvesting it or a packaging plant in Western Canada that’s cleaning
and bagging it, or a repackaging plant overseas that’s putting it into
smaller bags.”
Scientists at the Crop Development Centre at the University of
Saskatchewan have developed CDC Maria, which is hairless. It yields
slightly lower than the average of most canaryseed varieties, but the
varieties in development yield as well as the hairy varieties, said
Catellier.
The hairless product will be called canario, he said.
Ten members of the CSCA will be contracting production and collecting a
$3 per hundredweight royalty, which will be split between the
development centre and the special crops group.
The association is trying to get patents for canario in Canada, the
United States, the European Union and Brazil. It already has a patent
in Mexico.
Canaryseed is used almost exclusively for bird seed. That’s a good
market, but it’s dangerous for any commodity producer to be totally
reliant on one buyer for his crop.
The association hopes canaryseed is approved for human consumption in
the future, Catellier said.
“That could create new markets and make a bigger pie for us to work
with.”
