"Ontario farmers looking to turn a bigger profit should take a good look in their own backyards," Douglas Bradley, President of the Canadian Bioenergy Association (CANBIO), announced Jan. 15.
If residues from the corn, winter wheat, barley, spring wheat, and oats grown in Ontario each year were used to generate renewable energy, they could provide up to 24 per cent of all of the province’s electricity consumption, according to a recent study by Yimin Zhang, Shiva Habibi and Heather MacLean in the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association.
The problem? Harvesting leftover crops is new - simple, one-pass collection methods are just starting to be devised and markets are immature.
But soaring energy costs, advances in waste recovery equipment, and government support for renewable energy generation is changing the economics said Bradley.
That’s why the Canadian Bioenergy Association, located at 1769 St. Laurence Blvd. in Ottawa, and the OFA are hosting two half-day bioenergy workshops at the Canadian International Farm Equipment Show in Toronto Feb. 7. The workshops aim to help farmers get started in bioenergy using agricultural wastes or dedicated energy crops either for sale to Ontario markets or for on-farm energy generation.
The morning workshop called, "Finally! Money from agricultural waste and energy crops", will showcase new opportunities to sell agricultural wastes or crops to the Ontario energy market.
The afternoon workshop, Fuelling and powering your farm with biomass, will show farmers how they can use agricultural wastes to power their operations - a simple way of cutting costs and running a more sustainable operation. Each workshop is $40, if participants register in advance, and includes admission to the show. Workshop agendas and online registration are available on the CANBIO website: www.canbio.ca.
Funding for this project was provided in part by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Adaptation Council’s CanAdvance Program.
ENDS
CONTACT: Crystal Luxmore, public relations, tel: 647-239-5899, crystal_luxmore@hotmail.com
Douglas Bradley, president CANBIO, tel: 613-882-1768, douglas.bradley@rogers.com
For Farm Show media info/accreditation, contact Liz Shaughnessy 905-880-8053, lizs@bellnet.ca
IMAGE CAPTION: Agricultural crops or wastes like straw, corn cobs and switchgrass could soon be used to make
renewable electricity and heat - and help Ontario farmers grow their profits.
Turning leftover crop into profit
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Construction, February 2008
