Move over canola, here come soybeans

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This article was published 25/05/2003 (8174 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CARMAN — Which of these sights doesn’t belong along Manitoba highways?

a) golden wheat

b) shimmering blue flax

c) canary yellow canola

d) leafy green soybeans.

The answer is: They all now belong, as soybeans emerge as possibly the next big crop in the province.

Soybean acreage in Manitoba has gone from 5,000 acres five years ago to over 200,000 acres this year. Some industry experts predict it will soon hit a million acres.

By comparison, Manitoba has grown about 2.2 million acres of canola per year in recent years, and 3.5 million acres of wheat.

“Soybeans are pulling a lot of guys out of a debt hole,” said Roland Pfitzner, who grows soybeans near St. Adolphe.

Local processors — like Blink Bonnie Farms in Letellier and Jordan Mills Inc., south of Carman — are springing up. Some Manitoba soybeans and soybean products are already being exported to markets in Europe and Asia.

“It’s huge,” said Bruce Brolley, a Manitoba Agriculture agronomist, of the overnight emergence of soybeans as a significant crop. “Soybean production has come up from virtually nothing.”

Pfitzner first started growing soybeans five years ago. “It was a fluke,” said the southern Manitoba grain farmer. “I wanted to try growing something different.”

He couldn’t believe his financial returns or how cheap it was to grow the crop.

He has since introduced soybeans to 10 neighbours to whom he sold seed. Many of those neighbours are seeding half their acreage with soybeans this year. Pfitzner alone will plant 1,000 acres.

United States and South America are traditional soybean growers and Ontario annually grows over two million acres per year. But Manitoba’s climate has always been too chilly for soybeans.

However, newer varieties now on the market are proving to be considerably more hardy. Like Manitoba, North Dakota never used to be a large soybean producer, but last year it seeded 2.5 million acres.

There are also better soil inoculates — bacteria that stimulate nitrogen production in soybeans.

Inoculates produce a kind of self-fertilizing miracle. Like all pulse crops, soybean plants mixed with a soil bacteria (the inoculate) produce their own nitrogen fertilizer.

“That’s one reason farmers are turning to soybeans: Fertilizer prices have gone through the roof,” said Brolley. “Most nitrogen fertilizer is produced with natural gas and natural gas prices have gone sky high.”

After several years of production, the bacteria fixes permanently in the soil and inoculates no longer have to be added.

Currently, all Manitoba soybeans are grown in the Red River Valley. But for soybeans to become a major crop in Manitoba, the growing area will have to expand. Brolley is trying to convince the Manitoba Crop Insurance Corporation to provide coverage for soybeans to western Manitoba farmers.

About 85 per cent of United States soybean production comes from genetically modified crops.

Less than 10 per cent of production in Manitoba falls into that category. So Manitoba farmers are capturing premiums that range from 25 cents to a dollar per bushel by producing non-GM crops.

A plethora of products contain soybeans, since the plant’s product development is about half a century ahead of another food oil, Western Canada’s canola. Soybeans are used in a range of products, from meat replacement or extender, to computer parts, to soya sauce, to snack foods.

Protein-rich tofu is basically congealed soy milk. When popular Taiwan singing star Chiang Hui once complained to media that she was a chronic insomniac, fans pleaded with her to try the traditional Chinese remedy: a warm glass of soy milk before bed.

Some non-food uses include auto waxes, floor polishes, bio-diesel fuel, shampoos and conditioners, crayons, fabric manufacturing, pens and candles.

Then there’s the feed market that two local entrepreneurs hope to tap into. Soybean meal is also an excellent feedstuff for swine, dairy cattle and poultry, said Martin Harder of Delmar Commodities, and Clarence Leschied.

Harder and Leschied are the main investors in a new $2 million soybean processing plant called Jordan Mills that is scheduled to open at the end of June. The plant, south of Carman, will initially employ just four or five employees, but is built to easily double its capacity.

Harder said the decision to build a plant made economic sense.

“We’re a feed grains deficit province. We currently import a pile of corn from the U.S., and all our soy meal,” said Harder.

“In light of the consumption in the province, we are just fractional,” added Leschied. “We will only produce a couple per cent of the market share.”