Demonstrations showed challenges faced by food millers and processors if wheat is poor quality or low protein
Wheat’s value is all about its quality — or many qualities.
However, the farmers who grow it often know little about what’s inside the kernel or what distant and little-known buyers do with it.
That reality came home to farmers Scott Sefton of Broadview, Sask., and Heather Breitkreuz of Onoway, Alta., who attended the recent Combine to Customer course at the Canadian International Grains Institute.
“I think it’s important that we realize what our customers want, what they need,” said Breitkreuz March 25.
“It’s fascinating to find out what the millers are looking for, the bakers, the noodles for Asian markets. I think it helps build the story of Canadian agriculture when the producers … actually know what the end product is.”
CIGI has operated the Combine to Customer course for many years, giving a select group of farmers access to its facilities and experts in all facets of the milling and baking industries, as well as allowing them to hear from other members of the Canadian grain industry.
Farmers hear about quality premiums, quality problems, customer complaints and processing issues but seldom understand how they actually affect the food produced at the end of the process.
Sefton thinks he has a better grasp of that now.
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“Usually we grow it, throw it in the bin, ship it off and that’s the last we ever think about it,” said Sefton.
Now, after watching CIGI demonstrate food production challenges, Sefton thinks he understands the real milling and food processing impact of crop quality damage, similar to what many farmers suffered this year.
CIGI chief executive officer JoAnne Buth said the program is doing its job of allowing interested farmers to understand better what happens to the crops they produce.
“It gives them that connection and understanding, why the grading factors are so important, and why they have to pay attention to … pesticides, things like that, but also storage,” said Buth.
“So it makes that link for them about why the customer is looking for specific characteristics as well.”
Breitkreuz said being exposed to issues such as gluten strength and why it’s been such a big topic in the prairie grain industry for the past couple of years has opened her eyes, and she thinks more than just farmers need to understand the complexities of turning western Canadian crops into food products.
“I think more producers need to take it. Perhaps reporters need to take it. Politicians maybe, even,” said Breitkreuz.
Contact ed.white@producer.com
