Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you today.
My name is Franck Groeneweg. I'm a canola producer who farms near Regina. I have about 2,500 acres of canola on a 9,000-acre farm.
I chaired the research committee of SaskCanola. Here with me is Pat Flaten, our research manager.
SaskCanola was started about 20 years ago and has an annual budget of about $2 million, supported by canola farmers in Saskatchewan through a levy taken at the point of sale. We have an eight-member board and seven staff working. Our strategy is to support agronomy research, germplasm research, and canola utilization research. From the start we've worked in close collaboration with public research and hope to continue and improve on this to enhance public research.
We've had lots of different successes in the past 20 years, which have contributed to the success of the canola crop in Saskatchewan. Biodiesel is one of them. At the early stage we had research, and we have licensed agreements and royalties paid right back to AAFC and SaskCanola for technology. That's a project that's actually starting to pay back small amounts, and we can reinvest these royalties back into research.
We've been in early stage research supporting protein separation extraction technologies. And right now we have two facilities currently that operate in Saskatchewan.
Over the 20 years it's been very important to have improved agronomics for growing the crop of canola and reducing the risk to our canola producers, of which I'm a recipient.
SaskCanola has participated in the canola/flax science cluster with Growing Forward. It's a cooperative project managed by the Canola Council of Canada. There are selected projects that amount to about $20 million, of which $14.5 million is from the federal government and $5.7 million from the canola industry. That includes industry players like Richardson, Viterra, Louis Dreyfus, Cargill; and on the producers' side, the Alberta Canola Producers, SaskCanola, Manitoba Canola Growers Association, and others from the industry, including BASF, Bayer CropSciences, Dow AgroSciences. These companies are all working on projects through the canola/flax cluster, which is a great way to do this because there is actually partnership within the whole industry through the Canola Council.
The industry funds portions of projects through SaskCanola and Manitoba as well.
Some of the areas of investigation right now are oil nutrition, meal nutrition, and crop production within our canola crop.
Right now we are also partners in four research projects under DIAP, the developing innovation agri-products program, through Growing Forward. We've also participated in the Canadian agriculture adaptation program, the CAAP program, to continue commercialization of research on canola protein extraction methodology. Here we're at the pilot plant project stage.
Our organization is very committed to partnerships with federal government programs to enhance our ability to compete globally with other oilseed crops. It's so important for us as farmers to have the tools to be able to grow crops and reduce our risk and to compete with the rest of the world on the world scene.
Overall we've had a great experience with Growing Forward. We definitely appreciate the partnership that we've had and we encourage you to continue through the cluster and through DIAP funding with the next generation of Growing Forward.
Canola has an impact of about $15 billion on the Canadian economy and it wouldn't have happened without strong research and that partnership.