Canadian hog producers aren’t likely to see their feed costs dip below those in the United States any time soon, according to Mario Thierren, a research scientist at the Brandon Research Centre.
After watching the United States gain a feed cost advantage with more than a decade of steady yield gains achieved with hybrid corn varieties, Canada is getting back in the race with the latest barley research.
Only corn can top barley for yield in Western Canada, said Thierren, but it is unreliable and prone to failure in less-than-perfect conditions. Barley, on the other hand, is far more dependable and current varieties commonly yield up to 100 bushels per acre.
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Thierren said the latest research shows that barley yields could go even higher, up to 200 bushels to the acre, but the development timeline for the new super varieties is “at minimum” five years away, he said.
The bad news: cattle producers, not hog producers will be the beneficiaries of the improved genetics, said Thierren.
That’s because the widespread presence of fusarium in Manitoba, which contaminates the grain with DON vomitoxin, rules out using infected barley for hogs. Hull-less varieties are less affected, but suffer a yield disadvantage, said Thierren.
“It’s not the best of situations for hog producers right now,” he said. “The biofuel market is taking up so much that any feed will be becoming scarce.”
In past years, wheat that failed to make milling grade gave the hog industry a low-priced energy source for their rations. But with Canadian ethanol producers competing for the same product, hog producers will be forced to pay more.
For example, he said the enormous demand for wheat coming from the 100-million-litre-a-year ethanol plant in Minnedosa, Man., may result in “wall-to-wall” wheat being planted in the area, but hog producers won’t get much of it.
One bright spot in the otherwise gloomy outlook could be the imminent removal of kernel visual distinguishability as a grading requirement, according to Brian Fowler, a crop breeder and professor in the Plant Sciences department at the University of Saskatchewan.
He said that dropping KVD would allow researchers to set their sights on a new target: yield.
This may result in more production, and consequently, lower feed prices for hog producers.
In the past, plant breeders were hamstrung by the need to pass the KVD test, which meant that many promising varieties were left on the shelf.
A specialist in winter wheat, Fowler used the example of Falcon, which yields 40 percent more than spring wheat. It has averaged roughly 64 bushels to the acre in Manitoba over the past nine years, and could help put the shine back on Western Canada’s hog industry. With good moisture, yields could break 100 bu. an acre, he added.
“Essentially what we were doing was breeding for KVD, not for yield or other characteristics. That was just a tremendous waste of effort,” said Fowler.
He noted that the CWB originally turned up its nose at CDC Kestrel wheat, which came out in the early 1990s, due to its low protein, he said.
“On two occasions they tried to get it deregistered because they thought it was poor quality,” he said.
“It was the first of the high-yielding winter wheat that came out. It was because of varieties like that, we actually had winter wheat being used in the hog industry. There was so much opposition to that type of quality that the breeding program shifted to milling wheat and the momentum that we had started at that time was completely lost.”
Due to the strong negative relationship between protein and yield, dropping protein from the equation should allow breeders to bring yields up faster, he said. However, he added that bringing a new characteristic to market takes seven to 10 years.
David Rourke, a director with the Western Feed Grains Development co-op (WFGD), said cheaper feed grains might be a long way off, because the problem is global in scope.
“For the last 15 years, the total supply of rice, corn and wheat has fallen short of demand with the exception of 2004. As we keep adding more people, more meat eaters, and global demand for biofuels, it creates a shortage,” he said.
“You can blame it on biofuels, but it’s been coming for quite a long time.”
Tight supply has pushed up prices at the same time as biofuel has added another layer of demand.
“You can predict in a straight line that if nothing changes and we don’t get any better at what we do, and we keep meeting the mandate for biofuels, then feed grains will always be expensive,” said Rourke, who also operates a 12,000 head straw-based finishing operation near Minto, Man.
“But if you take the other view, that people have to eat, and politicians are responsive to people’s complaints, Monsanto, Pioneer, the WFGD and other technological innovators will continue to produce higher yielding feed stocks used on more acres.”
Better feed grain varieties, with yield 1.5 times better than hard red spring wheat, may put Canada’s hog industry back in the running, said Rourke.
The stiff competition from rising U.S. corn yields can’t be seen in isolation. Lower land prices in Canada help to even the playing field.
“It was not too many years ago, we were the cheapest source of feed in North America.”
