It takes about 90 days to grow a crop of lentils in southern Saskatchewan. If you want to build a 100,000-tonne plant to process those lentils, it takes about 365 days.
The seed for Southland Pulse Inc. was planted in January 2000 and the $5.25 million facility is expected to be cleaning and bagging chickpeas, lentils and field peas in Estevan, Sask., by January 2001.
“That’s quick when you talk about a plant that size,” said Southland Pulse president Brian Marcotte.
“I guess there’s some urgency if you’re going to build these things because if you don’t do it, somebody else is going to.”
Read Also
Going beyond “Resistant” on crop seed labels
Variety resistance is getting more specific on crop disease pathogens, but that information must be conveyed in a way that actually helps producers make rotation decisions.
All financing for the project came from capital provided by the 58 producers who own the plant and through a loan from the Estevan Credit Union.
There is no government money in Southland Pulse, but the group has applied for funding from the federal Agri-Food Equity Fund.
Construction has begun on the Estevan-based plant, which will be one of the largest of the 130-odd pulse processors in the province.
In addition to the cleaning and bagging facilities, warehouse and administrative office, there will be bin storage for 280,000 bushels of pulse crops.
The plant will be situated on a CP Rail main line with a rail siding that can accommodate a 28-car unit train.
“There’s very few plants in the province that have the ability to load unit trains. That was one thing in our discussions with CPR – they wanted us to have that ability,” said Marcotte.
If the Agri-Food Equity Fund delivers some cash, the company will likely install a second rail spur.
“We’re kicking around the idea of putting another spur in there so that we can load bulk and bagged product at the same time.”
Marcotte said the farmers who own the plant will deliver about 40 percent of the product. Most of them are large producers who farm within 80 kilometres of the plant.
Unlike other farmer-owned processing ventures, there is no direct link between ownership of shares and commitment of product to Southland. The investors didn’t feel that was a necessary requirement.
“Why wouldn’t you haul to the plant you own?” said Marcotte.
“We’re all free-enterprise type people and if we can’t earn somebody’s business, we probably don’t deserve to have it.”
While no major grain company or exporter is investing in the plant, the processor will likely enter into a business arrangement with at least one merchandiser. Marcotte said they are now in discussions with two major and one smaller unnamed pulse exporter.
Francois Catellier, executive director of the Canadian Special Crops Association, said Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and Finora Canada would be considered two of the largest pulse exporters in Canada. Marcotte said the pool is not one of the potential partners.
The partnership would be one in which Southland sources product on behalf of the exporter and then cleans, grades and bags it or ships it in bulk.
Future processes could include the following:
- Splitting peas and lentils for specialty markets.
- Processing component products such as pea hulls, flour, starch and protein concentrates.
- Making pellets for feed markets.
- Packaging and canning product for retail sale.
Initially the plant will concentrate on cleaning, bagging and shipping pulse crops. A 1999 Saskatchewan agriculture department survey found 90 percent of the province’s 128 pulse processors clean the crop but only about five percent do further processing such as sorting and splitting.
The average annual cleaning volume for Saskatchewan pulse processors is 14,812 tonnes. Southland hopes to process 70,000 tonnes of lentils, peas and chickpeas in 2001, 90,000 tonnes in 2002 and to be at full capacity by 2003.
The company expects to employ 16 people and will inject millions of dollars into the community through employment and spin-off opportunities, said Marcotte.
The timing for the new plant couldn’t be better. Saskatchewan producers seeded a record 4.8 million acres of peas, lentils and chickpeas this year. That’s up 55 percent from 1999’s impressive numbers.
“I think we’re going to be meeting our production targets sooner rather than later,” said Marcotte.
