Canola is being sucked in by the world’s biodiesel industry, boosting prices and giving a glimmer of hope to beleaguered prairie farmers.
But the Canadian canola industry faces the humiliation of seeing most of that biodiesel action in Europe and the United States, and almost none in the birthplace of the crop.
That may soon change, thinks the president of the Canadian Canola Growers Association after he heard Canada’s new deputy minister of agriculture speak to the Canada Grains Council.
“It’s great that the government’s focus is on innovation,” said Brian Tischler, an Alberta farmer.
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“We need good infrastructure development and we need good policy that will promote good health and clean fuel.”
Deputy minister of agriculture Leonard Edwards said he has been given orders by minister Chuck Strahl to help create a renewable fuels industry in Canada.
“What I’m hearing from this government, what I’m hearing from my minister, is an instruction for me to work with the deputy minister of Natural Resources Canada on a biofuels strategy, bring in the deputy minister of the environment,” said Edwards, who was a trade official before moving recently into the agriculture department.
Biodiesel production is booming around the world. European biodiesel, dependent upon canola oil, is consuming much of that continent’s crop and is drawing in extra supplies from all over the world, including seed from Australia, oil from Dubai and even oil from Canada.
American biodiesel production, which generally uses soybean oil as a feedstock, is booming, and a canola biodiesel plant is being built in North Dakota.
But so far little has been done in Canada, a situation created by the lack of incentives to match those in other countries.
Tischler said Canada needs to harmonize its biodiesel incentives so that plants will be built here to help consume the huge amounts of canola that the Canadian Prairies can now produce. The Canola Council of Canada set a goal two years ago to see more than half a million tonnes of canola used in biodiesel production, but so far little progress has been made because of the lack of supports.
Edwards said there is political pressure to encourage the biofuels industry to develop.
“The minister is very keen on this, by the way,” he said.
“I am very, very confident that we are going to see something on this in the not-too-distant future.”
Tischler said canola growers and the industry have taken the approach of offering solutions to problems rather than crying for handouts, and this seems to be getting a good reception in Ottawa.
“They’re focused on it,” said Tischler. “What the canola industry has provided is solutions, and that’s what they want.”
