Mexico is a promising market, but rail service south remains unreliable, says Prairie Oat Growers president
EDMONTON — There’s plenty of market potential for western Canadian oats, says the president of Prairie Oat Growers.
However, Art Enns said there is no point finding new markets until problems getting oats to market are solved.
He said last year was one of the worst winters for the industry.
“There were lots of milling companies scrambling for oats,” he said. “They weren’t quite running on dust but they were down to their low volumes.”
Ninety percent of Western Canada’s three million tonnes of oats are shipped to the United States, but few rail cars headed south with oats.
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“Did we lose sales last year? Absolutely we lost them,” Enns told an oat information session at the FarmTech conference in Edmonton.
“You talk to anyone in the milling industry, they say we never want to go through a winter like that again.”
He said the focus last year was on finding grain cars to move grain to west coast ports, which meant railways were reluctant to reroute cars to the U.S., where turn around times are slow.
Prairie Oat Growers met with federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and officials in the transportation department about railways servicing the American market.
“It helped this winter when they had the order in council,” he said.
“They did pressure railways to move grain into the U.S. We can question how effective it was.”
Canadian oat sellers were able to load producer cars on short lines in southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan to ship into the U.S., but Enns said it is still difficult getting cars.
He said hauling oats in trucks is too inefficient. One rail car can hold three to four truck loads of oats. As well, American trucking rules don’t allow the larger B-trains that Canadians use to ship to the U.S.
Enns said Mexico is one of the bright spots for new oat markets, but there is no point developing it until there is a reliable way to ship there.
“It’s frustrating for us as an association to see great potential all over the place and we’re restricted. We went to Mexico, we made our contacts and our hands our tied because of transportation,” he said. “We really had to back off on market development. Until we get this fixed, there is no point going out and trying to sell oats because we’re going to look like we can’t deliver.… It’s been really frustrating for this crop. Rail seems to be the easiest, but it may not be the long-term solution.”
mary.macarthur@producer.com
