Poppy Seed Production in Canada -A lucrative crop

[voltare]

Poppy Seed Production in Canada A Lucrative Crop Growing poppies is illegal in Canada without the approval of “The Office of Controlled Substances”. Send requests for permits to: Carole Bouchard Director of the Office of Controlled Substances 3503D 123 Slater St Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1B9 No permits have been issued to date. The following is my understanding of the facts of poppy production in Canada and why it is worthwhile asking for a permit to grow it. The only poppy variety I know of that is used in baking is the Opium Poppy (Papaver Somniferum) which is illegal to grow in Canada. I hope that an exemption can be issued for poppies similar to that given to hemp which is a non-drug form of the cannabis species. During my research, I have been informed that there are low opium varieties of poppy. If this is true, then I believe that similar regulations might work in both the hemp and poppy industry. You might ask, why grow poppies here? Poppies like the northern prairie’s wet climate, well drained alkaline soils, sunny days and cool nights. In addition, poppies do not require special equipment to farm. I believe that an ordinary press drill or air seeder could seed the crop and that ordinary swathers and combines can harvest it. If you can grow other small seeded crops like canola, you can grow poppy seed as well. Yields at the Morden Research Station in Manitoba ranged between 890-2672 lbs / acre. If a poppy bushel weighs about 50lbs then this translates into 18 – 53 bushels per acre. Poppies are well adapted to our climate and produce better than anywhere in the world. Canada has a competitive advantage due to our climate in growing this crop. Can poppy seed be sold locally and is its production economical? Here are a list of local buyers and prices: CSP Foods, Saskatoon, Sask. 2.20 $/lbs InfraReady Foods, Saskatoon, Sask. 1.12 $/lbs Richters Herbs, Ontario 5.00 $/lbs Go to your local grocery store. Prices will be even higher there. At an assumed average yield using the Morden Manitoba research station results of ((890+2672)/2)= 1781 lbs/acre and an average Saskatchewan sale price of ((2.20+1.12)/2)= 1.66 $/lbs, we get a gross revenue per acre of 3,562 $/acre which compares very favorably with other crops including organic crops. Actually revenues are at least 10 to 20 times that of regular crops. No wonder, using a 50lbs bushel, poppy seed sells for over 83$ per bushel. As a farmer, you might wonder if the effort of applying for a permit to grow poppy seed is worthwhile. As the above gross revenues per acre suggest, I think that even a small acreage would be worthwhile. Also, I believe that applying for a permit is the best honest thing to do. If you want to invest thousands of dollars of equipment, fertilizer and effort to grow a crop, I would hate to have to destroy it for legal reasons and perhaps serve jail time. I also believe that if no one takes the time to apply for a permit, permits will not be issued. It is all a matter of public interest. If there is no interest in the crop, why would government simply volunteer to pay for the prohibitive cost of administration and regulation that is required? The same problem exists in the hemp industry. Permits were granted only after enough farmers demanded it and processors of the crop were in place. Only in this case, multimillion dollar processing plants do not need to be built. The seed only needs to be cleaned before used in baking. Nor do new markets need to be developed for consumption. Poppy seed bread, cake and muffins are consumed world wide by many cultures including our own. Thousands of tonnes of poppy seed and poppy seed oil are imported into Canada every year. This sounds like selling refrigerators to Eskimos during the coldest winter on record. What is the solution to this problem? Write to the Office of Controlled Substances. Explain the facts as you see them. Get your friends and neighbors involved. Print this letter off and get them to write as well. It is far easier and cheaper than trying to get an AIDA payment.

[notil]

If one was serious about growing this crop is there realy any point of putting the time and energy into it considering the small market potential or is there a bigger market out there than I am aware of?

[nakodo]

there are regional markets (Ukranian heritage areas for poppy seed cake), specialty markets (bakeries and poppy seed muffins) and a few export markets. As usual sell it before you grow it or at least have buyers identified by name, address, fax, phone and personal contact prior to seeding. Note several attempts at field scale production in Manitoba failed dismally when the 'seeded to deep' crop rotted before germination, the second seeding of 'shallow seeded' blew away and dried out and the third attempt (no chemicals were used) at a crop was choked out by weeds so much for third time lucky,

[voltare]

Try an experiment. Phone a bakery and see how many bags of corriander or caraway or any other spice they use in a year. Then ask how many bags of poppy seed they use in a year. On an experiment of mine, they used about one bag of corriander a year and about 50 bags of poppy a year. These are 50 pound bags. I see thousands of acres of everything from buckwheat to corriander out there. Personally, I eat more poppy seed than I do buckwheat, corriander or carroway.

[parsley]

There are two excellent varieties of poppy which I have grown in the past. Really good yielding and very good for poppyseed buns. Bakers really want it. (Never store in plastic). Many people grow poppy and they did not have any problem with it as long as they watched their production carefully. Recently, Agriculture Canada seems to have taken the attitude that bakery-style poppy growers need government policing, so I quit growing it.

[voltare]

This is interesting. Do your varieties have a name? I agree with you about storing poppy seed in plastic. Even with refrigeration, I had a lot of condensation in my containers as the seed sweated. The seed needs to breath.

[bmj182]

Dear Sir, I was wondering if you could tell me the name of the seed varieties you were growing. Any other information would also be helpful such as who can supply seed, yield information, chemical products, storage, government regulations, etc. Please feel free to contact me at: wjlc@sk.sympatico.ca Regards, Brent Johnston

[parsley]

In the past, I spoke to our local RCMP and told them I was growing poppy so that they could keep an eye out for anything troubling. They told us to keep an eye on i t as well. We had absolutely no problems.
If the local RCMP are ok with it, why would Ag Canada start insisting that people apply for licenses? The RCMP do Ag Canada's policing anyhow. (As you can tell, I'm annoyed with Ag Canada's policy makers.) What I find is that Ag Canada's big toodo about hemp licenses pumps the rascals awareness to full steam.

Can you imagine applying for a poppy license, and then getting all the "oh my god,here's a cutting edge economic development idea" directors swarming in the fields? It's a public invitation to raid.

I have the two Latin names in my growing records. Both poppy varieties I grew were very differnt...one was blue... a black seed with a bluish-grey blush that remains evident until it is no longer fresh, very good for the traditional hungarian poppyseed bun market, very easy to grow.hardy and the seed has been prairie climatized. Climatization of seed is very important for uniformity of harvest. and the other was a white poppyseed that is used by the Mid Eastern (Lebanese etc)bakers....their specialties include bread products and sweets.very heavy yielding and growing tall, a little longer maturing. Lovely for traditional dishes, blending very nicely with honey products.
Never grew any more than 10 acres. Need small wooden storage bins for curing to prevent mould or off-taste. Seed in different area every year.
I also grew another blue, but the yield was lower and the taste not as nice, so I didn't continue any further than a test plot, because I didn't want cross-pollination
Both products have good markets, but my experience has been that Ag Canada prefers to encourage import rather than Canadian production.

[lauradawn]

Do you know where I can get information on the harvesting of poppy seed?