Non-food use of crops

[wd9]

Will non-food use of agricultural crops be the thing that 'saves' the farm?

Will the bio-economy provide all sorts of new crops and varieties that will inject liquidity and demand in the grains market?

Or will competing with lower priced hydrocarbon/existing fibre products further depress and limit the upside potential of crops?

[FarmRanger]

Doesn’t that depend on how committed our gov’t is to biofuels? In the short term the industry will need a boost. Long term they’ll compete if we can achieve technological efficiencies, and/or experience overall increased energy costs? If someone discovers some cheap, clean new energy source in the meantime, it would throw a monkey wrench into the mix.

[Southpaw]

I'm not sure if non-food and/or non-feed crops are going to be the saviour or not. but we, as farmers and industry need to figure out how these crops can be grown and varieties registered. Huge problem if we have an industrial use that contaminats the food crop. To a certain degree, it depends on the new crop and how potentialy damaging it may be. Don't forget in Canada we now have to deal with gov't bureaucrats to get most varieties registered.

[winwin]

Southpaw;in reality only wheat and barly are constrained by variety registration.Why? Three words starting withC,W and B.

Since all other crops are sold privately,quality is between buyer and seller.If it works for you and the customer is happy,grow any variety you want.Thats why thered such an array of corns,lentils,canola etc.

The cwb needs the cgc to define quality.This forces US into THEIR needs not the needs of buyers.AND it helps them to perpetuste the myth that they add value,even though any value comes at a cost to us.

All in all,since they are the only buyer, they can dictate what varieties we are limited to.The system is set up to protect the system.

I suggest growing other crops.You already are?

[brian99]

I've said it here before, wd9. I think any new demand is good demand. Will biofuels be the new savior of ag? Who knows. I just know barley futures are at $195/T. That helps all crops. It also hurts grain users. Position your business accordingly.

I've also said here before we need a fuel grade grain outside the board. Now. Throw away KVD for fuel wheat. If you're caught knowingly putting fuel wheat into the board system, you lose your permit book for, say, 5-10 years. We need a high yielding wheat to compete with high yielding (therefore low priced) corn.

On that note, I'm hearing about lots about feeding DDGS causing nitrate poisoning (frosted grain). I thought the distillation process would help somewhat.....guess not.

[winwin]

Brian did you say 'lose your permit book for 5 to 10 years'?

BANISHMENT.PURGATORY.EXCOMMUNICATION?

Bring back the lash,maybe but your talking cruel and unusual punnishment.I wont sleep tonight.No wont sleep.

To lose my share of the extra billion the CWB creates?No quotas?My own marketing?And maybe worst of all:to lose my vote in cwb elections.jeez.Ill be good,I promise.

[wd9]

It is quite unfortunate this group discussion forum can never get past the CWB.

The reality is the CWB never lifted a single finger, spent a single penny on advocacy of renewable fuel. That of course would be value adding to the grains industry.

Anyways, more referring to uses of non-food that have value as opposed to same or less vlaue replacement industries. Like the foam industry. While large, especially the the furniture industry, the use of oleos would be a demand, but is not a even medium value in return for crop commodity. Resins, polymers, 1,3 prop diols, elastomers, fibre products are the same.

Are we sealing the upper limit on crops if we become too involved in low value industries?

Haven't seen a new use yet come to the table that is high value and/or not already being done with hydrocarbons that are cheaper than it's bio alternative method.

[kamichel]

Well, WD9 I believe the bio market has saved my farm already. After 3 tuff years I can look to next year with much more enthusiasim. One question I have is there not another easy way to distinguish wheat types other than visual?
There should be some form of industry penalty for delivery of grain of not the type specified.
Every load of IMC canola that goes into the Clevet crushing plant here gets tested before being dumped. Yet some farmers still seem to make mistakes, wrong bin mix up, etc.

[wd9]

kamichel, thing I heard from researchers is the dna type or testing may not work due to the fact the seed supply is so impure in the first place, it may be difficult to anlyze that way. you can identify, but to determine actual representative content is iffy.

Specific protein tagging is an area of interest and may be around in the next couple years.

Warnex has a particular type of "DNA barcoding" that may be of value, however the offtypes would not have the code and wouldn't be picked up.

The other challenge is putting in this equipment at every delivery point, expensive.

Electrophoresis (using electric current to smear out a barcode of proteins) works but is also fairly slow. Also it won't show relative percentage of off types, just whatever the protein happens to be from the sample.

There are many challenges yet to oversome.

Unfortunately KVD is quite simple.

Using Camelina and Brassica Caranata are options in terms of canola, but in wheat, if it aint milling wheat, and it tests for the characteristics desired, who cares what it looks like.

As biodiesel has shown, the threat of demand is almost as effective as actual demand. It will still be a couple years before that will be true demand. Regardless if infrastructure is in Canada or US.

If anyone has more to add on this subject, that would be great.

[wmoebis]

I think with Identity programs comming in the mixing of varieties is going to be a thing of the past. As I see it I would contract for a specific variey and it is up to me to IP that contract variety. All grain is checked by the CGC or accredited inspection agency as they are trained to identify classes and varieties.

I too believe that milling varieties will become of eaqual value no matter of their visual characteristics. If my IP contract calls for #1 AC Barrie that is what is shipped. Not equal to.

The value in each IP contract has to reflect so that there is no value of mixing or miss representing contract. This has to be strictly enforced by the inspection agency and adheared to by producer and merchant. If there is found to be misrepresentation the onus must lie with the one making the misrepresentation. If it is a mistake and is missed by the inspection agency they must bear the onus for thier part.

[wd9]

wmoebis, if only it was that simple. If a processor is after a particular protein or carbon chain or molecule, the CGC will never ever ever without sophisticated instruments have a clue what they are looking at. Even then, having a variety that doesn't have the property in wouldn't be identified.

Again, this isn't about milling wheat.

Below is the list of possible non-food crop potential uses that are chemical derivatives from hydro-carbons and how many tons of each used in the US. A lot of these can be derived from starches and oleo's but will be modified to enhance required properties.

Do you think KVD will help identifying which varieties that are bred specifically for certain molecule ratios are up to par? Trust isn't an issue.

Fatty acids and soaps 4 96,235
Amphoteric surfactants 2 3,587
Alcohol ethoxylates 3 65,146
Short chain fatty acids 2 1,773
Esters 1 60,120
Free alcohols, C12 - C18 1 8,597
Metal salts 1 08,410
Alkyl ketene dimers 1 4,969
Monomer, dimer, trimer acids 9 5,709
Polymethacrylate esters 1 1,340
Fuel esters 7 4,844
Fatty nitrogen derivatives 9 ,072

Ester quats 6 5,318
C20 alcohols 9 ,072
FA polyamine condensates 5 1,710
Alcohol glyceryl ether sulfon 7 ,258
Amines, diamines, amines 4 6,720
Alkypolyglucosides 7 ,258
Quaternary ammonia salts 4 5,813
Other 7 ,031
Anionic surfactants 3 9,463
Other fatty acid compounds 4 ,536
Fatty acid amides 3 9,009
Hindered phenols 3 ,856
Alcohol sulfates 27,216
Thiodpropionate esters 2,722

[wmoebis]

And there is rapid testing out there that can do this? Or will there ever be? We herd about black boxes 20 yrs ago and still haven't seen it.

That is what I'm am saying the testing has to be done before hand and contracts signed, grain IP'd and everyone be held responsable for thier actions. I don't care if it is AC Barrie or Oslo or a 3M wht of any class, if the grain I have a contract on meets my contract needs KVD doesn't matter. I shouldn't have used a specific variety in my last example.

I agree inspectors can't evaluate specific qualities however they can over see that the contract specs are met, if needed. Not unlike it is today, only today we rely on classes, variety, grades and KVD instead of specific qualities and/or traits for specific contracts.

[just_wondering]

I see the saving grace being the replacement of one crop with another. All very different specific markets producers will go to a spec. and that spec will not easily fit within another, for example if I am growing ****seed/ Nexera, I cannot/will not sell it into the conventional market. If I am growing Ethanol starch wheat's I can't blend it into the #1 13.5 market.
I am looking forward to the day when all crops are buying acres 2-3 years in advance to ensure supply so that they can supply a end user.
Even if switch grass is the answer and cellulosic ethanol happens I could probably throw acres that way too
All of this and not being held captive to C.N will make farming a much brighter place in the future.