The biggest knock against specialty canolas has been their poor yields. Cargill heard that knock and opened the door to what industry officials believe could be a crop that draws consumer attention to the crop’s health benefits.
The company has registered the first specialty oil canola hybrids, two new Roundup Ready varieties that produce high oleic oil and deliver strong performance in the field, according to company and industry officials.
“This is a big development for specialty canola,” said JoAnne Buth, vice-president of crop production with the Canola Council of Canada.
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“There will be quite a bit of interest in it because it’s Roundup Ready and because it will have the higher yields.”
Gary Galbraith, Canadian production manager with Cargill Specialty Canola Oils, said field trials have charted a 13 percent “yield boost” over leading open-pollinated canola varieties and he’s optimistic this year’s trials will demonstrate even better results.
Seed of the two hybrid varieties will be multiplied this summer and the one that performs the best will be made available to growers in 2004 under the name Victory.
“We expect a significant number of our total acres to be hybrid in 2004,” said Galbraith, adding that industry observers are predicting “a substantial increase in demand” in the next few years for oils containing high oleic acid and low linoleic acid.
Buyers want healthier oils specially developed for high-heat, high-stress food applications such as restaurant deep frying and margarine production.
Most liquid oils used in those processes require hydrogenation, which produces undesirable trans fatty acids. Processors can avoid that step by using specialty oils that are more stable.
“They’re looking to our high oleic canola oil as a strategic ingredient to deliver low saturated fats and to eliminate trans fatty acids by using oils that improve their product’s nutritional profile,” Galbraith said.
Changes in labelling regulations mandated by Health Canada and proposed by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration will soon require that saturated fat and trans fatty acids be labelled.
Buth thinks those regulations provide an opportunity for canola to shine compared to its competition by promoting healthy products such as the one Cargill has developed.
“This is really a way to essentially make our mark in terms of canola,” she said.
Cargill will begin offering multi-year Victory production contracts to existing customers this summer. Growers who sign those contracts prefer to get a head start on the rest of the pack and like the extra planning time, Galbraith said.
One-year contracts will be available this fall once the company has collected yield data from its trial plots in Western Canada and from its multiplication site in southern Idaho.
“New growers would want to probably go with the one-year contract initially to see if this is the type of program that fits their farming business,” Galbraith said.
