“Canadian farmers fully understand the need to take care of the environment and they are constantly innovating to find new solutions to reduce their emissions,” said federal agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay in a news release today.

“Our investment in the Agricultural Clean Technology Program will help keep our farmers and ranchers on the cutting edge, so they can make their operations more resilient today and for generations to come.”

The cash will fund 148 projects through the Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) Program’s adoption stream, which prioritizes projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A further 14 projects through ACT’s research and innovation stream are also funded, the federal news release said. This stream supports research, development and demonstration of agricultural clean technology.

Among projects funded include 37 new grain dryers, 48 solar installations, and 31 purchases of “precision agriculture technology,” the ACT program’s database shows.

Other projects include anaerobic digesters, heat exchangers, and electric heating systems.

To date, 414 projects have been funded through ACT to the tune of nearly $170 million.

ACT first launched in 2018 with an initial promised spend of $25 million over three years and was later expanded to $495.7 million across the adoption and research and innovation streams.

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Thursday morning the Senate’s committee on agriculture and forestry heard final witnesses speak on Bill C-234, which would amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to expand farm-related carbon price exemptions.

At the committee’s next meeting on Oct. 17, it will consider potential amendments before returning it to the senate chamber where they will debate the bill again before a third reading.

If the bill is amended, it will return to the House of Commons to be reviewed again before being given royal assent and becoming law.

In June, the Keystone Agricultural Producers, the Alberta Federation of Agriculture and the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) urged the Senate to pass Bill C-234 before Parliament’s summer break.

The bill, first introduced in the House of Commons in November 2021, passed its second reading in the Senate on June 13. The Senate rose for summer on June 30.

Witness statements

The Sept. 26 meeting heard from representatives of the Agriculture Carbon Alliance, which is a coalition of 15 farm groups, the Grain Growers of Canada, the Ontario Agri Business Association, the Climate Action Network, the David Suzuki Foundation and a professor from the University of B.C.

Two days later, the committee heard from representatives of the National Farmers Union, Saskatchewan’s general farm group (APAS) and an academic from the University of Ottawa. They also heard from civil servants regarding the cost of the proposed exemptions.

Proponents of the bill told the committee that farmers have no choice but to use machinery fueled by natural gas and propane to dry their grain, as viable alternatives don’t currently exist. Arguments focused mainly on grain drying, making little reference to heating farm buildings.

Russel Hurst, executive director of the Ontario Agri Business Association, made a bid to have grain drying at commercial grain elevators included in the exemption. He told the committee that, unlike in the West, many Ontario farmers pay to have their grain dried at the elevator. The elevator then passes on the cost of the fuel, including the carbon price, to farmers.
Senator Paula Simons said one could argue all businesses do that, and Hurst conceded this was fair.

Black asked if it was worth amending the bill to include grain elevators, at the risk of the bill not passing. Dave Carey and Scott Ross, co-chairs of the Agricultural Carbon Alliance, and Kyle Larkin, executive director of the Grain Growers of Canada, said it was not worth the risk.

“We’ve been waiting for years,” Larkin said.

Hurst said they aspired to have legislation that suited all growers.
Other witnesses suggested that exempting fuels from the price on carbon would remove farmers’ and equipment manufacturers’ incentive to switch to cleaner technology.

B.C. researcher Kathryn Harrison argued that exemptions undermine the effectiveness and fairness of the price on carbon and added that she was concerned that this wouldn’t be the last exemption.

Tom Green, who represented the David Suzuki Foundation, argued that “every sector can come up with their own reason for why they deserve relief.”

Carey rebutted that farmers want to innovate, and the eight-year sunset clause currently built into the bill would give a deadline to farmers and equipment providers, pushing them to develop new solutions.

University of Ottawa associate professor Nicholas Rivers said that while, “there are legitimate concerns that the carbon price puts Canadian grain farmers at a [competitive] disadvantage,” completely exempting fuels from the carbon price would remove the price signal that incentivized improvement. Murray Jowett, who represented the National Farmers Union, agreed.

Simons questioned whether returning money to farmers was the right tactic at all. She asked the witnesses if it would be better to put the money toward green technology development.

The senators also considered if the current rebate program needs to be more targeted. It currently pays out farmers based on their farm expenses, which aren’t necessarily tied to grain drying or heating buildings.

The rebate program has been panned by agriculture groups for being inequitable.

Senator Yuen Pau Woo asked whether the rebate could be targeted toward farms more affected by the carbon price on natural gas and propane.

Rivers said a better rebating system, such as an output-based system similar to those for large industrial emitters, would alleviate the cost to farmers while still providing some incentive for innovation.

The committee also met Oct. 3 where it heard from representatives of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.

During the Oct. 5 meeting, senators heard from a professor from the University of Guelph’s engineering department, and the senior research chair for agricultural engineering and technology from Lethbridge College. Both were questioned about available clean grain drying technology.

–Geralyn Wichers reports for the Glacier Farmmedia network from Steinbach, Man.

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C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by southwestern Ontario Conservative MP Ben Lobb, appeared before the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Monday and was reported back to the Commons.

According to Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), the bill — which had its first reading Feb. 7 and second reading May 18 — is now expected to come up for third reading during the House’s winter session before moving on to the Senate.

C-234 carries amendments to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act which expand that legislation’s definition of eligible farming machinery to include grain dryers as well as barn heating and cooling systems, and which extend the exemption for farming fuels to include farmers’ purchases of natural gas and propane.

“This exemption is needed to reflect the realities of the entire Canadian agriculture industry and the undue financial burden the carbon tax places on all the necessary practices undertaken by farmers and ranchers like drying grain, irrigating crops, or heating and cooling livestock barns,” Conservative MP and opposition ag critic John Barlow said in a release Wednesday.

The standing ag committee on Monday did pass several amendments to Lobb’s bill, tightening its scope.

Those include a sunset clause — which Barlow said is a reflection of Canadian farmers’ confidence that new and sustainable technologies will come forward to replace the gas- and propane-fired options they now use to dry grain and heat barns.

That sunset clause will see the exemption brought back in a set period of time for review, allowing whatever government is in place at that time to let it lapse — or to amend or extend it if the available technologies don’t yet warrant ending the exemption.

Barlow’s original amendment called for a 10-year sunset clause, but committee members later voted to shorten that period to the bill’s eight-year anniversary — citing testimony the committee heard suggesting such technology would be available sooner rather than later.

Another approved amendment will limit the exemption’s use in farm buildings, to only include those structures directly involved in crop or livestock production, such as barns or greenhouses.

‘Critical issue’

Grain and livestock producer groups have since lined up to cheer the bill’s return to the Commons, urge MPs of all parties to approve its passage and call for Canada’s Senate to do the same.

“It is clear that (ag committee) MPs understand the lack of current alternatives for grain drying and the need to provide an exemption until viable technological solutions are developed,” GFO chair Brendan Byrne said Tuesday in a separate release.

With “no viable fuel alternatives” available for the practices covered in C-234, imposing carbon pricing on those activities “does not provide a signal to lower emissions from these sources,” Grain Growers of Canada said Wednesday in another release.

Instead, GGC said, C-234 “will put money back into the hands of farmers so that they can continue to invest in practices that drive innovation, further efficiencies and reduce fuel usage.”

“With rising input costs, inflation and supply chain shortages, carbon surcharges on necessary farm activities adds an additional burden and pulls capital away from critical investments,” GGC chair Andre Harpe said in the same release.

The Agricultural Carbon Alliance, a body representing the GGC and 14 other national-level grain, livestock and general farm groups, said Wednesday that with the bill approaching third reading, it now plans to launch a public advocacy campaign “that will call for a bipartisan consensus on this critical issue.”

Fram group representatives appearing before the ag committee echoed many of the same concerns. “We understand that the carbon price is a market signal for producers to adopt low-emission energy alternatives wherever possible, but over the past year that signal has been dwarfed by skyrocketing costs for inputs such as fertilizer, gasoline and diesel,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture vice-president Todd Lewis said at the committee’s Oct. 24 meeting.

“Even when fuel prices aren’t at record highs, farmers constantly seek to increase fuel efficiency wherever possible.”

However, another speaker, University of Saskatchewan associate professor Tristan Skolrud, cautioned the committee at the same meeting that C-234 runs the risk of further drawing out the timeline for development of viable alternatives.

With “limited changes in producer behaviour, there will be limited reductions in (greenhouse gas) emissions from grain drying before greener alternatives become available,” he said.

“The development of greener alternatives will require significant private capital, and if grain drying is unregulated, the signal to private capital will be lost. Previous testimony on this amendment suggests that sufficient alternatives are at least 10 years away.

“Keep in mind that this estimate is a function of the carbon price. A higher price will shorten that time frame if private capital senses a profitable opportunity.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Ottawa has set aside $50 million for the so-called “adoption stream” of its $166-million Agricultural Clean Technology Program. Another $10 million will be offered for “powering farms with clean energy and moving off diesel.”

“In the face of this new climate reality and the expectations of Canadian and foreign consumers who want to know that their food has been sustainably produced, we must double down on our efforts, particularly by investing in the development and adoption of energy-efficient technologies,” federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in a release.

The government didn’t release an applicant guide with detailed specifics (it is supposed to be available online later this month) but the grain dryer projects must be worth at least $50,000. (A non-profit, such as a co-op, can receive federal funding for up to 75 per cent of the cost.) However, government officials have said retrofitting of old dryers will be eligible as will be dryers fuelled by biomass if — like all projects under the adoption stream — they can “meaningfully reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.”

Last year, Alberta and Ottawa rolled out the Efficient Grain Dryer Program that covered half the costs of either new dryers or retrofits such as high-efficiency burners, heat exchangers, exhaust air recirculation and other upgrades that would improve energy efficiency. That program, which had $2 million in funding available, “is now temporarily suspended, and is not accepting new applications until further funding is available,” the provincial government’s website says.

Grain drying became a flashpoint in the debate over the carbon tax, particularly after the wet fall of 2019 when a large portion of the grain harvest required drying. The carbon tax, currently at $40 per tonne, will hit $170 per tonne by 2030 and will threaten the competitiveness of Prairie farmers, say many farm groups, including the big four crop commissions in Alberta. The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan says a $170-per-tonne carbon tax would up the cost of growing wheat by $12.50 an acre (mostly for trucking, rail freight, and grain drying).

The Agricultural Clean Technology Program also aims to foster the development and adoption of clean technologies that reduce emissions. A separate “research and innovation stream” will pay half the costs (up to $2 million) of researching, creating and commercializing clean tech for agriculture.

“Helping the sector adopt clean technologies to cut greenhouse gas emissions is a key part of our plan to build a healthy environment and a healthy economy for all,” Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in the release.

Details on the $10 million for “moving off diesel” also haven’t been released. In an appearance before the House ag committee last month, a senior AgCanada official was asked about specifics and he replied funding would be available for “a number of areas.”

The government says the ag sector has generated about 10 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. However, it also said “agricultural production in Canada has doubled over the last 22 years while emissions have remained relatively stable.”

To find out more, Google “Agricultural Clean Technology Program adoption” and click on the Agriculture Canada link for the adoption stream.

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But the busy season doesn’t leave time for the care and maintenance to reduce the risk of fire when these units are working flat out.

Although it’s impossible to completely eliminate fire risk with anything that creates heat, experts say a few simple, time-efficient preventive measures can reduce the risk considerably. Perhaps the best philosophy is to assume your grain dryer will catch fire eventually and then maintain, monitor and plan accordingly.

“Somebody told me once that there is no one specific grain dryer that is more prone or less prone to catching on fire and that it’s not a matter of if your grain dryer catches on fire — it’s a matter of when,” said Richard Hoppins, fire chief for the central Alberta community of Trochu and a producer himself.

Of course, more use means more risk, and farmers have been buying and using grain dryers more than ever because of wet weather during the last few harvests.

Dustin Krzywy, a Ponoka-based electrician whose company, East Country Electric, sells and services grain dryers, said he’s been selling dryers in record numbers in recent years.

“Over the last five years we have increased our dryer sales quite a bit,” he said in a May interview. “We literally can’t even inventory enough because you can’t predict what every year is going to be like. I know literally hundreds (of producers) who were drying well into January and February and still in March. I’ve got guys drying right now from last fall.”

Krzywy and Hoppins say there are a number of maintenance and operational steps that producers can take to reduce the risk of fire.

Clean thoroughly

Grain dryers are virtual magnets for debris. Leftover grain, chaff and even birds’ nests are among the combustible materials that get routinely caught up in the corners, screens and columns of dryers.

“Canola is really bad for its pods and even barley for its beards,” said Krzywy. “If it doesn’t come off perfectly clean off the combine — which it never does — all of that stuff finds little gaps in between metal and starts to stockpile. Eventually that catches on fire.”

Dryers should be cleaned of combustible material at least once a year before harvest, typically with a pressure washer or air compressor. Hoppins cleans out his dryer before and after harvest and between commodities.

“Clean the unit out at the end of the season and remove all of the chaff and spilled grain in and around the dryer,” he said. “Don’t give any spark the opportunity to ignite anything.”

Pay special attention to dryer screens.

“The dryer needs to be able to breathe,” said Hoppins. “The more it struggles with dirty screens, the less fuel efficient it’s going to be and the less capacity the dryer is going to have.

“The dryer is going to struggle to do its job and that presents another chance that something may ignite.”

Krzywy suggested producers take an air compressor to their dryers every day they’re in use. If that’s not an option, they should at least be checking them on a daily basis.

“If you spend 15 minutes with an air compressor blowing them down that would be all you need, and that’s if it was fairly dirty,” he said.

Columns are vulnerable to fire risk from stuck grain, particularly when it’s moist, said Krzywy. “When you get years like the last three years where producers have had to put such moist products through their columns, (the grain) will hang up in certain spots — usually in corners,” he said.

“I have literally cleaned out corners where it’s grown again in the fall or throughout the summer from the previous fall. That’s where all your grain starts to build on top of what’s already growing and then it plugs up the columns.”

The fire risk compounds from there if action isn’t taken, he said.

“By 20 batches it’s, one, overcooked and, two, it’s on fire because it hasn’t moved and it hasn’t cooled.”

Maintain electrical and mechanical components

A pre-season dryer run is key to identifying any potential issues on the electrical and mechanical side, said Hoppins.

“Make sure that the burner is clean, any holes are free of debris and all electrical and gas components are working correctly. Re-grease bearings. Check all the wiring and ground connections for tightness and corrosion.”

A good rule of thumb is to do your pre-season run three weeks to a month before you think you’re going to start harvesting, he said. That doesn’t always happen in real life, however.

“Quite often we see guys fill their wet bins and fire up the burner without doing any maintenance and they assume that just because the dryer worked when they shut it off six months ago that it’s going to work now,” said Hoppins. “But it’s during lack of use that stuff starts to deteriorate and fail. The first time you start it up for the start of the season is usually when we see something fail.”

Watch your heat

It may seem obvious that running grain dryers at excessive temperatures can present a fire risk. However, producers often do just that during the hectic days of harvesting, Krzywy said. This is particularly dangerous when drying an oilseed like canola, which tends to dry hot. He advises his clients to dry oilseeds no higher than 160 F.

“(Producers) get in a hurry,” he said. “They’ve got too much to dry and they’ve got too much on the go so instead of drying canola at 160 F, they put it to 240 F and leave it in there for too long and it starts on fire.

“It’s an oilseed — it will only take so much.”

The province has recommendations for maximum drying temperatures for wheat, barley, flax, oats, canola and peas at www.alberta.ca (search for ‘grain drying’).

Don’t turn your back

Eyes should be kept on running grain dryers for as long as possible, said Hoppins.

“When we bought our grain dryer the salesman told us to never leave it unattended, never walk away from it or leave it,” he said.

“It’s fine if you have to go grab a tool or grab a quick snack or whatever, but 15 to 20 minutes is the maximum that you want to leave it unattended because that’s usually when fires start.”

Reach out to your fire department

A good thing about most rural fire departments is that most of their firefighters have some knowledge of how to fight fires arising from farm equipment — but they’re not all knowing, said Hoppins.

Having your local fire department learn a few things about your specific dryer setup may shave precious seconds off the firefighting process, he said. He suggests inviting the department to your farm to acquaint it with your grain dryer and all other potential fire risks on your property.

“It’s good to have your local department do a tour around your grain dryer so we know where the gas inlet is and where to shut it off, whether you run on propane or natural gas, where the power comes in: Is it a generator or a genset or a power line? We need to know those things so that if something does occur we can quickly access them without having to scramble.

“Also, there is always the chance that we as firefighters might see a hazard that the producer might not.”

They can also have some good tips.

“(On our farm) we have a little plan in case something does go wrong that includes having several fire extinguishers mounted on or around the dryer,” said Hoppins.

“We mounted three: two on the platform of the dryer and one off to the side so that if you can’t access one fire extinguisher you can hopefully access the other two depending on wherever the flames or smoke might be. That way when something does go wrong you have that fire extinguisher handy.”

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Vancouver Island MP Paul Manly, the Green Party’s caucus critic for agriculture, announced the party’s position Monday.

“We support the grain producers of Canada in their appeal to the federal government to waive the carbon tax on fuel used for grain drying during last year’s harvest,” he said in a release.

“The disruption and expense of last year’s weather-plagued harvest is already causing widespread hardship. Carbon tax relief is justified and necessary.”

“Farmers are always looking for efficiencies and would certainly adopt energy efficient grain dryers if they were available,” Kate Storey, the Greens’ non-sitting shadow cabinet agriculture critic, said in the same release.

“For now, we have few choices. If nature fails to provide the sun and wind required to dry the grain in the field, we are forced to use grain drying equipment which adds cost to food production… In a wet year, the carbon tax on fuel needed for grain drying just adds insult to injury.”

The Greens on Monday also called on the federal Liberal government “to invest in the development of energy-efficient grain drying technology and short-season crop varieties, and to promote farming techniques for early maturity and quick harvest,” Manly said.

Green Party policy calls for a “revenue-neutral” price on carbon pollution through a fee and dividend system, but also calls for federal assistance for farmers and “others in vulnerable sectors” to further adapt to climate change.

Ag groups calling for carbon tax relief for grain drying include, among others, the National Farmers Union, which in mid-December passed a resolution seeking a rebate for farmers for fuel used in on-farm grain drying.

“More grain is being dried all over the Prairies than we have ever seen, and producers have been very startled at the extra cost of the tax when they get their bills,” Todd Lewis, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said in a separate release in November following the re-appointment of Marie-Claude Bibeau as federal ag minister.

On some bills, he noted, the carbon tax is a surcharge of 40 per cent on the commodity cost of propane and natural gas — bills “that are going to be hard to pay in a difficult year.”

Markus Haerle, chair of Grain Farmers of Ontario, in November described the tax as one “farmers cannot afford to pay when markets and harvest conditions are so challenging… Burdening grain farms with this tax means that farmers cannot invest in technologies that can combat climate change.”

Bibeau, for her part, recently said she plans to seek out more information on carbon pricing’s effects on farms.

“This is the case that I am building right now, to see if, in fact, I do have a case to present in front of the minister of environment and the minister of finance,” she said earlier this month.

“I cannot go just on feelings, I have to go with a case built on evidence and this is what I’m building right now, with the collaboration of my provincial colleagues and the collaboration of the industry that is affected.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC-CTY), which represents over 3,000 CN staff in Canada who walked off the job Tuesday, said some trains are still running and “the fact that these trains are not transporting propane is a business decision by CN.”

“While CN is nowhere near operating at full capacity, we think enough trains are running to allow CN to supply Ontario and Quebec with propane,” TCRC president Lyndon Isaak said Friday in a release.

“We wonder if CN is choosing not to ship goods like propane in order to manufacture a crisis and force back-to-work legislation.”

The House of Commons isn’t scheduled to resume sitting until Dec. 5, but several industry leaders and politicians have urged an early return to Parliament to deal with the CN strike.

“Recalling Parliament and tabling emergency legislation would show both sides of this dispute that the government is serious about ending the strike,” Andrew Scheer, leader of the opposition Conservatives, said in a statement Wednesday. “That could result in an agreement being reached much sooner.”

That said, the governing Liberals haven’t yet proposed to use back-to-work legislation to end the work stoppage.

Over 1,800 CN locomotive engineers and over 600 supervisors are “free to cross picket lines and continue to operate freight trains every day,” the TCRC said.

Negotiations with CN are ongoing, the Teamsters said Friday, and the union “continues to work closely with federal mediators.”

For its part, CN said in a statement Friday it has “a small pool of qualified managers that only allows the company to operate at approximately 10 per cent of normal service across its extensive 22,000-kilometre-long Canadian network safely.”

That means “very limited amounts of various commodities are moving across the country,” CN said, including container traffic “to keep Canada’s ports fluid to be able to return to normal operations after the strike.”

Some rail traffic, propane included, is already moving, Grain Farmers of Ontario noted in a separate statement Friday, quoting federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau as saying a train with 100 propane cars “has left Edmonton for Quebec.”

However, GFO said Friday it wants to “ensure that there is propane being delivered to those who need it in Ontario as well.”

“We are all looking at huge losses in our businesses if we are not able to dry these grains,” GFO chair Markus Haerle said in a release. “We want the government to extend this support across the country. That is not unreasonable.”

CN on Friday also reiterated its call on the Teamsters “to accept voluntary binding arbitration by an independent third party selected jointly by CN and the TCRC,” or by federal Labour Minister Filomena Tassi, “as a means to end this labour dispute.”

One farm group, the National Farmers’ Union, urged CN to continue bargaining rather than press for arbitration to end the strike. The NFU, in a statement Friday, said it “reject(s) the company’s efforts to use farmers’ hardships as a pressure tactic to avoid bargaining in good faith.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The late harvest in the Midwest has been further hampered by wet conditions, forcing farmers to dry their grain before putting it in the bin. As many dryers use propane, there has been an increased demand.

Media reports stated the infrastructure system to move propane around the region has been largely at fault. The system of pipelines, rail and trucks has been unable to keep up with the unusually high demand.

Further exacerbating the situation has been increased demand for home and commercial heating. Some Midwest states have temporarily lifted transportation restrictions on propane in hopes of improving the supply.

For farmers in the U.S. Midwest, propane is primarily sourced from Kansas, Texas and Western Canada, according to the U.S. National Propane Gas Association (NPGA), which emphasized the issue is not a shortage of the fuel itself.

Instead, the challenge is getting propane to the right place at the right time, the NPGA said, adding the supply issues are caused by “limits on the safe transportation of propane from supply points, as well as limits on pipeline capacity.”

In Canada such supply bottlenecks haven’t been an issue, according to Nathalie St-Pierre, CEO of the Canadian Propane Association (CPA).

“With the challenging wet and cold weather, propane demand for crop drying has been strong and steady this fall. CPA members say that although it was one of the busier years for propane demand, it was less than it was last year,” she said.

“Snow and freezing rain has all but shut down harvest in the country at this time, so demand is transitioning to construction heaters and home heating.

“Our industry anticipates demand for propane to be strong during the winter and is ready to serve their customers’ needs,” she added.

Preventing future issues in the U.S. Midwest will mean taking a closer look at propane storage needs, CHS Propane vice-president Adam DeLawyer said in a release Monday from that company.

“Continued expansion of retailer storage and on-farm storage will be critical to meet the farmer’s ability to harvest crops at today’s increased yields and rates.”

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting. Includes files from GFM Network staff.

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As of Sunday, the overall U.S. soybean harvest stood at 85 per cent complete, according to USDA’s weekly crop progress report. The pace was two points behind this time last year and seven off of the five-year average.

The oil crops outlook cited delays to spring planting, a cool summer and wet conditions during the fall as the main reasons for this year’s harvest being so late. Furthermore, snow across much of the northern Plains made the harvest more difficult.

Added to that, the supply of propane hasn’t been able to keep up with the demand. Farmers wanting propane for grain dryers are forced to contend with home-heating demand, which in turn has raised propane prices, running up farmers’ expenses.

While less production has been forecast in North Dakota, Michigan and several southeastern states, that’s been countered somewhat by gains in Minnesota, Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska.

However, USDA lowered its projection for soybean production to 3.55 billion bushels in its November supply and demand report. Although down slightly from its October estimate, USDA’s forecast is 20 per cent less than last year’s harvest.

Despite that decline, USDA also projected an increase in ending stocks to 475 million bushels. The outlook called for the domestic crush to slip by 15 million bushels, to now 2.105 billion. As well, soymeal exports have dropped by 14 per cent from this time last year.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.

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The Farm Energy and Agri-Processors (FEAP) Program shares costs for components of a new dryer or when retrofitting components of an existing dryer, said Katherine Rogers, energy extension co-ordinator with Alberta Agriculture.

“For retrofit grain dryer components, eligibility is determined on a case-by-case basis,” said Rogers. “You must include detailed quotes, specifications, and if possible, calculations showing the energy savings of the upgrade.”

Eligible retrofits may include hopper covers, automatic moisture controllers, new high-efficiency burners, variable-speed drives for electric motors, PTO to electric motor conversion, insulated plenums, exhaust air recirculation systems or secondary heat exchangers, and gravity-fill roofs that replace powered levelling augers.

“Upgrade options on new dryers are considered if they are an optional upgrade from the standard new dryer configuration,” said Rogers. “Only the cost of the options is eligible, not the cost of the standard dryer.”

Eligible new components may include upgrade options such as heat exchangers, preheat systems utilizing exhaust air, optional high-efficiency burners, variable-speed drives for electric motors, optional automated moisture controllers, and gravity-fill roofs used in place of powered levelling augers.

Bins, conveyors, legs, and aeration fans are not covered.

The program is retroactive to April 1, 2016. Go to the Alberta Agriculture website to see the full funding list, application form and other eligibility requirements. Outreach officers are available to answer questions and to provide assistance with applications.

The contacts are Amber Kenyon, 780-307-7849 (northern Alberta), Vern Steinborn, 403-894-0050 (southern Alberta), and Rongrong Xiang, 780-853-0222 (eastern Alberta).

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