Farmers shouldn’t lose faith in Nexera canola because of problems with deliveries to the Louis Dreyfus Canada plant in Yorkton, Sask., says the specialty canola’s marketer.The omega 9 oil is selling into a lucrative and growing market, but has faced short-term turbulence.”I think there is a real opportunity for us to go after some large food companies, some food processing and food service companies in North America with a supply of canola oil that’s going to be available,” said Tyler Groeneveld, marketing manager for Nexera canola oil for Dow AgroSciences.”The economy’s turning around, some of these food processors and large food companies are now once again getting ready…. We haven’t lost anyone who’s in the program.”Many farmers are furious with Louis Dreyfus Canada for not taking delivery of contracted Nexera canola over the winter.The grain company has cited slower-than-expected adoption of the oil by users and slower than expected startup of its Yorkton crush plant for its decision to refuse to accept most contracted canola for delivery.It has offered to pay on-farm storage charges for producers and has a plan to move all the contracted canola by the end of the crop year.Most producers appear to be angry at the grain company and not at Dow AgroSciences or Nexera, but the problem in Yorkton has made some marketers wonder whether omega 9 canola oils like those made by Dow and Cargill face weaker long-term demand than the companies claim.”There needs to be more transparency about the value at the end of the line before I recommend (farmers grow omega 9 canola) again, because I just don’t have any confidence that the value is there,” said farmer adviser Brenda Tjaden Lepp, co-founder of FarmLink Marketing Solutions.”I don’t believe the demand is there.”Groeneveld said the demand is real and growing, with new companies adopting the high stability, high health oil in the place of soybean oil.He admitted that bad economic times had slowed food companies’ adoption of the new oil, but said no one who embraced it has turned away.Now that food providers are feeling more confident about the state of the world economy, more big players are likely to adopt omega 9 canola oils.”This program is going to more than double again,” said Groeneveld.About two million acres of Canada’s 17 million acres of canola are planted with omega 9 canolas.”This is an opportunity that is not going to be there with regular canola oil,” said Groeneveld, describing the omega 9 market.
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