It’s planting season for Georgia canola growers. This year,
the seeds have been
planted for a better market for the emerging crop.

“We haven’t had commodity canola production in Georgia
for two years,” said Paul Raymer,
an agronomist with the University
of Georgia College
of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in Griffin,
Ga.

“All the canola grown in Georgia has been grown on
contract,” Raymer said.
“But this year two crushers have shown interest in seeing
commodity canola revived so
they would have an oilseed commodity they could buy. They
see a market here for it.”

Request the high-res image. GRIFFIN DAILY NEWS/BOB FREITAG

NEW MARKETS will allow Georgia canola farmers to sell their crop in-state. Crushing facilities in Vienna and Dawson, Ga. offer close to world prices for Georgia-grown canola. University of Georgia agronomist Paul Raymer, pictured above, said he and other UGA scientists are working to learn more about the crop to help Georgia famers who want to include this oilseed in their crop rotation.

Farmers grow grain crops mostly as openly marketed
commodities. Companies with special
needs, though, sometimes offer contracts for farmers to grow
a certain amount of a
specific type of grain.

When Calgene, the major contractor for canola in the
state, offered no new contracts to
Georgia farmers, the crop’s future here looked bleak.

Most canola is grown in Canada. The crop is struggling to
catch on in the Southeast,
where it is grown mainly in the coastal plain from Alabama
to South Carolina.

“Previously, we had a buyer for the commodity canola
crop,” Raymer said.
“But in most years, the price offered was below the world
price.”

Harvested canola is delivered to a processing plant,
where the oil is extracted from
the seed in a crushing process. The result is two products,
oil and meal. The meal is used
in livestock rations.

One of the new canola crushers in the state is Mid-
Georgia Processing in Vienna, Ga.
“They were built about three years ago as a cotton crushing
plant,” Raymer said.
“In recent months, they’ve seen the need to diversify and
crush other products like
canola.”

The other new crusher is Cargill Peanut in Dawson,
Ga. “They’ve been doing some
limited crushing of canola for the past six years,” Raymer
said. “They’re
planning to expand that now.”

The two firms’ commitment to canola pumps fresh hope into
the crop, which Raymer
believes has great potential as a money-maker for Georgia
farmers. “Having these two
new crushers gives us a viable market,” he said.

“In the past, we’ve had to rely on a market based largely
on the expectation that
the crop would be shipped to Canada for crushing,” he
said. “Prices were
discounted to compensate for that low volume and the need to
ship it long distance for
crushing.”

The crushers are finding Southeastern markets for the oil
and meal.

“We import large amounts of oil and meal in the
Southeast, the meal primarily for
use in the poultry industry. They will try to market the
product here,” Raymer said.

It’s a modest beginning that could make the future as
bright as the crop’s dramatic
fields of yellow flowers.

“In the long term, it means we finally have markets we
can start to grow an
industry around,” Raymer said. “If you don’t have someone to
buy it (at a good
price), it’s hard to develop an industry. This puts us on
equal footing with other
canola-producing regions of the world.”

Raymer and other UGA scientists have been developing
canola varieties and growing
techniques to make the crop work in Georgia.

“We’ve had a strong research and extension effort for the
past eight years,”
he said. “We just released the first variety from our
breeding program this year.
It’s available to growers on a very limited basis now.”

UGA scientists at the Griffin and Tifton, Ga., experiment
stations have been developing
a Southeastern production system for canola.

“We’ve had a strong collaborative effort with industry to
develop this new crop
for the Southeast,” Raymer said.

“We’ve conducted research to determine the proper
planting dates, planting and
harvest methods and fertility requirements,” he said. “And
we’ve developed ways
to control insects and diseases.”