A canola seed processing facility that is said to be the largest in the world officially opened Oct. 1 on the outskirts of Lethbridge.
Bayer CropScience completed a $15.6 million expansion to its 2006 facility, increasing its building to 43,000 sq. feet and its bin storage and conveyance systems to a five-acre footprint.
The plant can now process more than 30,000 tonnes of canola seed per year.
Southern Alberta is the centre of hybrid canola seed production in Canada, and the major canola seed companies all have facilities in the region.
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Al Driver, president of Bayer CropScience Canada, said one of every two Canadian canola fields grew the company’s InVigor brand last year, “and that’s the basis that we have built and expanded this facility.”
Driver said Bayer’s initial facility, built at a cost of $8.4 million, was designed to clean five million acres of seed. Company officials wondered at the time if that capacity would ever be filled, he added.
Now, about 20 million acres of canola are grown on the Prairies and the original plant size has more than doubled.
“This facility will allow us to manage new traits, increase capacity,” said Driver.
Bayer CropScience has also recently invested in improvements to its Regina plant, which produces Liberty herbicide, and last fall turned sod on a new wheat re-search facility at Pike Lake west of Saskatoon.
The grand opening of the expanded Lethbridge plant was initially scheduled in June but postponed after harsh frost in Saskatchewan and Manitoba forced reseeding and thus major seed demand.
The site now has 54 new bins, bringing the total to more than 160. Site manager Rob Southwell said the facility is now gearing up for the busy season of cleaning this year’s canola crop from the 250 contract growers.
A workforce of nine full-time em-ployees expands to 30 from now until the end of May, he said.
Marcus Weidler, head of seeds in Canada for Bayer CropScience, said Lethbridge was an obvious choice for expansion.
“Lethbridge is in the heart of the seed production area for canola. If you look around, the majority of all canola seed is produced here in this area, in rotation with other high value crops.”
Crop diversity provides the needed separation for canola seed production, and irrigation availability removes a key variable.
Weidler said the region may have reached its limit in terms of canola seed production and separation, so contracts are extending eastward and into Montana and Washington.
That seed goes to the Lethbridge plant for cleaning and bagging.
The facility allows the company to better manage its InVigor seed varieties, which include those resistant to pod shatter and blackleg.
The facility also conducts re-search into best seed handling techniques to minimize damage.
“We kind of treat the seed as little diamonds,” he said.
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