Targeting equine industry | The growers association may fund research project looking at nutritional benefits of oats
Randy Strychar needed a gimmick to lure more young veterinarians to his booth to learn about the benefits of feeding oats to horses.
It was summer and he was preparing to attend the trade show held during the influential American Association of Equine Practitioners’ annual convention in Anaheim, California, in December.
He asked the board of the Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA) if it had any ideas and got an unusual response. Somebody suggested getting Roy Rogers’ stuffed dead horse.
The association sponsors a U.S. television program hosted by Julie Goodnight, who Strychar describes as the Martha Stewart of the equine television market.
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Goodnight works for RFD-TV, a rural television network that bought Trigger’s stuffed hide at an auction in 2010 for $266,500.
“We had her approach RDF with the (proposal) to get the horse. So sure enough, we did manage to get Trigger in the booth and they threw Bullet (Rogers’ dog) in there,” Strychar said during a Dec. 6 presentation at POGA’s annual convention.
Strychar, an oat industry guru and president of Ag Commodity Re-search, said the booth attracted 500 visitors, up from 150 the previous year.
“It was the buzz of the convention,” he said.
It’s an example of the kind of publicity the industry hopes to generate with its proposed three-year $3.7 million promotional campaign aimed at rebuilding oat acres to their former glory by encouraging horse owners to demand the product.
“This is the future of the oat market,” Strychar said.
“I can’t see another conceivable project that has as much potential to really turn this around.”
North American oat acres and production have been in a steady nosedive for decades. The main culprit is the sharp drop in demand from the equine industry. Sales have fallen to 300,000 tonnes a year from 1.1 million tonnes in the early 1990s.
Strychar has spent the last two years investigating why demand has faltered so badly. The trend began in the drought years of 2001 and 2002 when oat prices spiked relative to corn.
However, there was more to it than high oat prices. Increased competition from wheat middlings and corn and the push toward pelleted and complete feed were big contributors.
Feed manufacturers use the cheapest feed they can find to make the pellets, and 47 of the 50 U.S. states have no requirement to list the type of grain used.
“(Horse owners) have no idea what’s in those bags,” said Strychar.
Then there were the studies published in the early 1990s saying old horses and those with metabolic issues shouldn’t eat starch.
The results began to be misinterpreted as those findings spread around the internet. People were spreading the word that starchy crops like corn, barley and oats were bad for all horses.
Another factor was the lack of somebody championing oats in the equine industry.
“There was nobody standing up saying, ‘whoa, what’s the problem? What’s going on here? Why are we losing demand?’ ” said Strychar.
POGA has become that missing voice. It intends to convince horse owners and “expert influencers” such as veterinarians, farriers, feed manufacturers, nutritionists, grain companies and millers that horses need to eat more oats.
Research will be a key component of the marketing blitz. POGA is considering funding seven nutritional research projects. One promising proposal will explore whether oats can reduce the incidence of colic, the leading cause of premature death in horses.
Annual oat exports would increase by 186,256 tonnes if the promotion campaign resulted in half of the U.S. horse herd eating an extra 0.11 kilograms of oats a day.
As well, oats would suddenly become Canada’s third largest crop export behind wheat and canola if something like the promising colic research bumped daily oat consumption up by an extra kilogram per day.
“We have the potential for a huge, huge growth for the oat market moving forward,” said Strychar.
POGA has committed $750,000 to the Equine Feed Oat Project, about $500,000 of which has already been spent in advance of the promotion campaign.
The association hopes industry and governments will provide the bulk of the $3.7 million that has been budgeted for the project starting in 2013. Strychar said industry participation has been slower than what was hoped.
