In the height of today’s health consciousness, Americans have
discovered an alternative
low-fat cooking oil — canola.

That spells profit for some Georgia farmers.

After several years of low wheat prices, many Georgia farmers
welcomed a new winter
crop.

“About 18,000 acres were planted in the Carolina-Georgia area,”
said John Woodruff,
a University of Georgia Extension Service agronomist. “About
16,000 of those were
planted in Georgia.”

That’s about the same acreage as was planted last year. But this
year farmers are
looking for much better yields.

“Last year we had a very bad freeze that wiped out all but about
2,000 acres of the
canola crop,” Woodruff said. “So far, this year’s crop is in
mint condition and we have
no reason to think we will harvest any less than 95 percent of
the acreage.”

Another plus for Georgia’s canola growers is the industry
attention to the crop.

“This year almost all of the canola planted was on contracts,”
Woodruff said. “Last
year, only 70 percent was contract-grown.”

Growers’ noncontract canola is bought and sold locally like
corn, wheat or other
grains.

“With contract crops, it is vertically integrated,” Woodruff
explained. “A particular
outfit offers a per-bushel amount for the grower to grow it at
the guaranteed price.”

The future looks bright for Georgia farmers interested in
growing the new crop.

“Canola production is likely to continue to increase,” Woodruff
said. “That’s especially
true if the current offering price of $8 per bushel holds.”

The market price for wheat, the crop with which canola competes
for acreage in
Georgia, is about $3.30 per bushel for the 1997 crop.

But Georgia farmers planted about 400,000 acres of wheat this
year. That’s up from
350,000 in ’95. The two crops yield close to the same number of
bushels per acre.

Farmers who want to know more about growing canola as a winter
crop should contact
the county
extension office.