Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
That’s the attitude of Larry Walker as his community contemplates a value-added venture that converts peas and canola meal into pea-can, a feed nutrient for hogs.
“It’s a tough time to get a group of producers together to start coughing up cash,” conceded Walker, a farmer and chair of the Miniota, Man., municipal economic development committee.
“It’s not pretty out there, but I think the producers we have are committed to finding a way.”
Walker, whose community is located in western Manitoba, hopes to see the pea-can plant in production this fall. It would produce a feed nutrient that’s two-thirds peas and one-third canola meal.
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Walker said a feasibility study suggested the venture is viable, especially in light of the hog expansion expected in western Manitoba. Driving that expansion is the $120 million Maple Leaf hog processing plant at Brandon, Man.
Some business plans have already been prepared for the pea-can project. One of the remaining questions is whether to structure the venture as a new generation co-operative or as a corporation.
Walker would not disclose how large the plant will be or how much it might cost.
“This isn’t elaborate,” he said, describing the equipment that will be needed to produce the feed ingredient. He thinks pea-can could compete against American soybean meal as a hog feed ingredient.
Francois Catellier, president of Golden Meadow International Inc., agrees with that outlook.
Catellier was involved with an initial study done for the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association comparing pea-can with other feed ingredients such as wheat, barley and soybean meal. Pea-can provides high energy and important proteins for a hog ration, he said. A separate study done in Alberta showed there could also be a savings of roughly $2 per hog from including pea-can in the feed rations.
Catellier said there are at least two other plants in Western Canada already producing pea-can. With one of those plants in Alberta and another in Saskatchewan, he believes there’s an opportunity to start one in Manitoba.
“This is not a pie-in-the-sky thing. It’s something that has been proven looking at other scenarios.”