PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. – Pulse growers expect pigs will bring a new pea and canola plant to Manitoba.
Members of the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association have been researching the possibility and following up on leads for about a year.
Dallas Watt, a pea grower from Reston, Man., said farmers wanted to see if locally grown feed ingredients could be used to replace expensive soybean meal imported for hog rations.
Now he has heard from a reliable source that a company from the feed industry will build a pea and canola crushing mill, but has no further details.
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Extensive research and trials show the pea-canola meal mix works well in hog rations.
“But the industry just isn’t going to jump on it until there’s a steady supply of it,” Watt said.
Feed companies and hog barns also need a way to forward price feed, he said. Pulse growers have been working with the provincial government and canola growers on the idea.
Jim Downey, deputy premier of Manitoba, told pulse growers at their recent annual meeting that as much as one third of the province’s crop land will be used to grow feed for the hog industry in the future.
Gordon Bacon, president of Pulse Canada, told growers he has been promoting Canadian peas in hog rations around the world, from traditional European markets to Asia and Chile.
He said seminars explaining the economic benefits of peas, backed up with local trials and published results, aren’t always enough to convince feed processors to give peas a try.
“You have to work hard to change traditional behavior,” said Bacon.
In China, farmers are just getting used to the idea of feeding grain to animals, because “peas are associated with a human food.”
But Bacon said the undeniable trend of greater pork consumption around the world bodes well for the pea industry.
A feed consultant from Red Deer, Alta., told pea growers they should look close to home for new opportunities for their crop.
“I think your biggest and best market, bar none, is the pigs produced in your province,” said Jim Gowans, who develops rations for larger hog farms.
If Manitoba hog barns used 20 percent peas in their rations today, Gowans said the province would need to double its pea production. And hog production is rapidly expanding, he noted.
Gowans, who is also a shareholder in the Alberta Pig Company, said feed costs in Western Canada are $20 lower per pig than the rest of Canada, and $25 lower when peas and hulless barley are used in rations.
Last year he saved his clients $1.50 to $2 per pig shipped by using the “opportunity ingredients” of peas and canola meal in rations.
Gowans hasn’t included soybean meal in his rations for two years, replacing it with a mix of one-third canola meal, two-thirds peas.
