Bioethanol HAVE YOU MADE A STRAW CONTRACT

[r.reid]

ATTN. Farmers in North East Saskatchewan!

Have many of you have signed a straw contract with Iogen??

For those of you that haven't...WHY NOT?

Crunch time is on NOW and they need YOUR straw in order to build this multi-million dollar factory.

If they do not get enough straw, they will build it in the United States. Because they (the U.S. farmers) want it there. NOT here. Does that piss you off??

HERE IS THE CONTACT PHONE NUMBER: 1-800-499-9688

HERE IS THE FAX NUMBER: 306-765-2844

HERE IS THE E-MAIL: strawbuyer@iogen.ca

Iogen will PAY YOU for YOUR straw, and PAY YOU again if you bale it, and PAY YOU again if you can truck it.

BUT THEY NEED THE CONTRACTS NOW!!!!!!!!! or they will leave.

[ckd129]

What are they offering? And where is the potential site location? Birch Hills?

Thanks

[r.reid]

Birch Hills area, yes.

What do they offer you ask. Here it is

Choice A: $10/metric tonne (flat rate)

Choice B: Depends on the price of crude oil in U.S. currency per bbl. For instance, if crude oil = $19.99 or less you would get $7.00/metric tonne. But if oil is $55.00 or more, the producer would get $15.00/metric tonne. In other words, the price of the straw is dictated by the price of crude oil.

If a wheat crop produces one metric tonne of straw per acre, at $15.00, you could pay for your cost of seed!!

A crop such as oats, would produce more straw.

[Vader]

I talked to someone from Iogen. He told me that their enzymes are specific to each crop. One enzyme for wheat straw, another enzyme for barley straw and yet another enzyme for oat straw. If they are buying wheat straw they may not be interested in oat straw. If I remember correctly he told me that they were only interested in wheat at this time because it is the most plentiful.

[FarmRanger]

Have you considered the nutrient value you are selling in the straw. I don't know what the total amount of N P and K are in a tonne of wheat straw, but at todays fertilizer prices, it doesn't take a whole lot to make up for the $15 for the straw. Just the removal of carbon will harm your soil organic matter levels, which in turn has serious consequences on future production. If I was considering selling straw, I think I'd sharpen my pencil a bit before I started baling.

[r.reid]

FARMRANGER. Do you grow wheat on wheat every year or something???

Vader. To be acceptable, straw will meet the following requirements:

1. Harvested during the order year, golden without rot or weathering
2. Max moisture content 18%.
3. Comprised of type (wheat, barley, or other as agreed) of staw ordered by the plant.
4. Segregrated by type (wheat, barley, other as agreed).
5. free of any preventable toxins, or ethanol production inhibitors as the Plant may discover over the course of the agreement, provided the Plant provides guidelines for best preventative practice in advance of harvest.

[r.reid]

OH Yeah, FarmRanger. If you were going to bale the straw yourself, that would be extra $$$.

They would pay you for the straw and then pay you again to bale it.

[Vader]

Should be a simple decision. When you sell grain you have to replace the nutrients. If you sell straw you have to replace the nutrients. If you can make money doing it then go for it.

At some point in time we will all be forced to look at things in more depth to determine if the energy produced exceeds the energy input. This will be true no matter whether we are producing bread wheat for baking or straw for ethanol.

see
http://www.energybulletin.net/281.html

[FarmRanger]

The point of my post was not to say that selling straw was in and of itself a bad thing to do. Just keep in mind that you are taking that much more out of the soil than with just harvesting the grain. When we take wheat, barley or whatever other grain from our fields, we are removing nutrients, which we are paid for depending on market prices. The same should hold true for straw.
It seems to me that there may be an attitude that straw is some kind of free byproduct that the only cost is the baling which you may be compensated for.
When I sell wheat, I might get $150 per tonne for it, which translates to being repaid for the time, machinery and soil nutients that into producing that tonne of wheat. Even if you take out the time and machinery costs, you still have the soil nutients used to produce that tonne of straw.
I'm not even saying that $15 per tonne doesn't pay back those nutrient costs, because I am not sure of the amount of NPK in a tonne of straw, but I suspect that there isn't a whole lot of profit in $15/tonne straw when even if machinery and time costs are not taken into account.
Remember, that there is only a limited amount of NPK in your soil. The straw you sell, means less nutrients left for future crops. The depletion process might take longer in high nutrient soils, but it does happen in all soils. I'd personally rather sell those nutrients in the form of $150/tonne wheat as opposed to $15/tonne straw.
Luckily, this is still a free country, and you can farm as you want, and I can do likewise.
Finally, I’ve never grown wheat on wheat, but even if I did, it would make very little difference to the amount of nutrients in a tonne of straw. I choose to put those same nutrients back on the land. If you don’t, that’s your decision. Cash flow considerations might make straw removal your best choice. All I suggested is that you consider all the costs of doing so before you start baling.

[r.reid]

And to think that people use to burn the straw. Some still do! Crazy

But I think that you could safely fit the "straw selling" into your rotation 1 out of 3 or 4 years, without depleting your soil of nutrients.

[Braveheart]

FarmRanger, I believe you make some very valid points. The discussion re nutrient depletion is important, but the point of knowing baling costs is really important. Baling anything is far from free. The capital costs are significant and operating costs are going through the roof. In my budget $15/mt is barely a breakeven when labor is included.

Iogen looked at our community in southern MB first. The local straw "co-op" wouldn't give the straw up at breakeven so Iogen moved on. I hope producers really examine all their costs before signing a lowball deal they may regret later.

[Cattleman]

I am no expert here, and I know that there is nutrients in the straw, but I have also read research (unfortunately I can not remember where right now) that was saying a large amount of the nutrients in the plant material is in the roots and stubble, therefore removing the straw by baling was not removing as much nutrients as originally thought. It was only a small amount of nutrients that was removed in the form of baled straw.

Just something to consider or research when studying these issues.

[r.reid]

I'd guess that they would pay the "going rate" for custom baling. What do guys charge for custom baling anyways???