American companies trying to lure prairie farmers into growing more NuSun sunflowers are getting fewer bites than they would like. If they want to change their luck, they might have to try better bait.
For the past three years, American oilseed crushers and snack food makers have been visiting the eastern Prairies to promote NuSun, a special kind of sunflower, as the way of the future. The latest appeal for more NuSun production was made last week by a representative of Archer Daniels Midland.
“We could use some help with additional acreage needs,” said Curt Stern, a field representative for ADM’s Northern Sun crushing plant at Enderlin, North Dakota. “We’re obviously short.”
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The oil of NuSun sunflowers is lower in saturated fats than traditional sunflower oil. Also the oil does not require hydrogenation, a process that extends the shelf life of vegetable oils but which creates trans fatty acids, known to increase the cholesterol linked to heart disease.
As consumers become increasingly health conscious, the kinds of oils used in making snack products such as potato chips are drawing more attention.
However, snack food makers need assurances of ample NuSun oil supplies in order to switch from the other available oils.
NuSun sunflowers were commercially released to growers in the United States in 1998. The variety now accounts for about 60 percent of the sunflower acres grown in North Dakota, a prime sunflower producing area.
American companies want Canadian farmers to grow more NuSun because sunflower production is dwindling in the U.S, while production in Western Canada continues to climb.
However, there are several reasons why producers in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan have not embraced the variety as readily as Americans, said Mel Reimer, executive director of the National Sunflower Association of Canada.
The nearest crushing plants are in North Dakota, so the price premium Manitoba growers might gain from growing NuSun is eroded by the cost of transporting the crop south of the border.
For a couple of years, Reimer has suggested that American buyers establish a central delivery point on the eastern Prairies to reduce those transportation costs. American companies already have central collection points for buying oats from the eastern Prairies.
A second issue, said Reimer, is the general satisfaction of Manitoba growers with the returns they are getting from growing sunflowers for the snack market.
The eastern Prairies now have a well established industry for processing and marketing these confectionary sunflowers. Of the more than 220,000 acres of sunflowers grown in Manitoba this year, almost three-quarters were devoted to confectionary sunflowers.
“Expansion has really come on the back of the confection industry,” said Manitoba Agriculture oilseed specialist Rob Park.
Another issue for Canadian growers is access to the latest NuSun varieties. The varieties are developed in the U.S., meaning there can be a lag between when American growers get the most current varieties and when they become commercially available in Canada.
