Sixteen years after Western Canada’s first wheat-based ethanol plant opened for business, the barley industry is taking a serious look at how it fits into the still emerging bioeconomy.
“We’re so far behind the curve, we’ve got to start somewhere,” said Doug McBain, past president of the Western Barley Growers Association and chair of the biofuel initiative.
His group and the Alberta Barley Commission have received $262,000 in funding from the federal government’s Biofuels Opportunities for Producers Initiative to evaluate the crop’s potential as a biofuel feedstock.
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“We think there is something there. We need to flesh out how much is there,” McBain said.
When added to the money raised by industry partners, the two agencies will have $380,000 at their disposal to fill in the significant gaps that exist in barley based ethanol research.
Research contracts have been awarded to Ceapro, the University of Alberta, Kelwin Consulting and Shambrock Consulting.
Researchers will attempt to answer a variety of questions:
- Does barley produce more or less ethanol than wheat or corn?
- Do hulled or hulless varieties make a better feedstock?
- Is there a variety not being grown that would be well suited to ethanol production?
- Does barley make a better feed byproduct than corn?
- Will farmers increase their incomes by growing the crop for industrial purposes?
The study will also examine the possible value in fractionating the crop before processing, which would produce valuable byproducts such as bran, germ and beta-glucans to go along with the ethanol and dried distillers grain.
The group is hoping to have preliminary answers to some of these questions by September with the final report due next March.
“We may find more questions than we do answers,” McBain said, but at least the barley industry will have made an initial foray at decreasing its almost complete dependence on feed and malting markets. Producers feel it is an undervalued and underused crop with less than one percent of the 10 to 12 million tonnes of annual production in Canada being used for human food or industrial purposes.
“Do we want to wallow around and keep growing $2 barley and run to the government, hat in hand, to try and bail us out every year?” McBain said.
“Or should we do something ourselves and create a market and industry of higher value?”
Barley growers are not expecting the ethanol industry to suddenly slurp up 50 percent of the barley crop; even one million tonnes of sales seems optimistic.
“We wouldn’t even put a dent in the carryover, let alone need new production,” McBain said.
Ethanol would be a smaller customer than the malting industry but the expectation is that it would be a high value market and barley growers want a piece of the action.
“If you’re not in the game, you’re missing out,” he said.
