In its drive to get bigger, Canada’s canola crushing industry has to be careful not to undermine the value of its main byproduct, says the vice-president of utilization with the Canola Council of Canada.
The industry hopes to be crushing 7.5 million tonnes of canola by 2015, up from 3.7 million tonnes in 2006.
Accomplishing that goal will create a byproduct of 4.17 million tonnes of meal, nearly double the 2.1 million tonnes produced in 2006, Dave Hickling told growers attending the canola portion of Crop Production Week.
“Meal is going to be moving into a surplus situation and there is a tendency to get rid of it at lower values in that type of situation,” he said.
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Three-quarters of Canada’s canola meal production is exported and 97 percent of that is shipped to the United States.
Canola meal sells at a discount to soybean meal because it has lower protein and energy content. In dairy rations it fetches 70 to 85 percent of the value of soybean meal. The ratio falls to 65 to 75 percent in hog rations and even lower in poultry diets.
Dairies pay a premium for the canola meal compared to other livestock operations because it produces an average of one kilogram per day more milk than diets using soybean meal. That is why the bulk of Canada’s canola meal exports are consumed by dairy operations along the west coast of the United States.
But the U.S. dairies are not capable of absorbing an extra two million tonnes of the product, which means it will have to move into lower-value hog and poultry rations.
Crushers have typically derived 75 to 80 percent of their revenue from the oil side of the business and the rest from the meal.
“In the last year or two that spread is widening further,” said Hickling.
Moving more meal into hog and poultry rations will worsen that gap unless something is done to make it a more valuable product for those industries.
“It’s not as if we’re hoping to see a huge increase in canola meal value by 2015. It’s more that we want to avoid a significant price decrease,” said Hickling.
The main issue is figuring out how to boost the energy content of the meal. That can be accomplished through breeding, processing and by the addition of enzymes.
On the breeding front, the industry will be attempting to reduce lignin and polyphenol content and increase energy-rich components like free sugars and protein.
But breeding is a long-term solution to a rapidly growing problem. More immediate solutions can be found by doing things like ensuring better particle control and density at the processing stage and adapting plants and mills to prepare the meal for enzymes.
A project is underway that uses different processing techniques and enzyme treatments on three types of canola. The council has set a goal of increasing the energy content in canola meal by 10 percent by 2015 to accompany its goal of boosting the domestic crush.
Other research is looking at how to increase inclusion rates in livestock rations and how to use it as an aquaculture feed.
