In a decade or less, agriculture will no longer be synonymous with food production, says a chemical industry official.
Instead, said Murray McLaughlin, president of the Sustainable Chemistry Alliance in Sarnia, Ont., it will be associated with chemical production, medicine, consumer goods and energy.
He warned that Canada will be left behind the rest of the world if politicians, industrial leaders and university officials don’t quickly realize this fact.
“I can pick out any country in Europe and Asia and they have long-term plans,” for agriculture, bio-refining and the bio-economy, he said during Capturing Opportunities, a Manitoba Agriculture forum on value added industries held in Brandon April 20-21. “In Canada, what is our long-term plan? I don’t see a plan for Canada takes us out (very far).”
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Sustainable Chemistry Alliance was formed to capitalize on changes in the chemical industry.
He said the future of the chemical sector is green, which means it will be focused on industrial, consumer and health products derived from plants and natural materials.
McLaughlin, who spent most of his career in agricultural research with the University of Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan government and Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, said the Ontario Federation of Agriculture is a partner in Sustainable Chemistry Alliance, which facilitates investment and financing for biorefining entrepreneurs.
“The ag community (in Ontario) sees this as a way to transform their industry.”
However, McLaughlin said Canada lacks a national vision to build a bioeconomy based on the country’s grain, oilseeds, forage crops and associated products.
In contrast, Europe has Plants for the Future, an initiative with multiple goals including a bio-based economy that produces clothes, paper, energy and plastics from agricultural commodities.
However, he said conferences like Capturing Opportunities are a way to build momentum toward a Canadian plan.
“It’s sort of like when John Kennedy said, ‘let’s put a man on a moon.’ Well, nobody had a clue how they were going to do that,” said McLaughlin, who was the business development director at the Canadian Light Source in Saskatoon before taking his current position in Sarnia.
“(If) we want to be world leaders in this sector, the whole area of biomass and bio-industrials … let’s just do what we need to get there…. and embarrass the government into making the decisions that we have to.”
Simon Potter, manager of the Composites Innovation Centre in Winnipeg, who also spoke at the conference, said Canada has “staggering opportunities” when it comes to developing innovative products and services from agricultural commodities, crop residue and forestry waste.
For example, the Composites Innovation Centre is working with Motor Coach Industries, a bus manufacturer in Winnipeg, to make bus parts from hemp and flax fibres.
He said farmers, academics and industry will need to work together if the Canadian bioeconomy is to grow and prosper.
We cannot afford to live in fragments any longer.”
