Soy Canada executive director Brian Innes tells growers from across the country that they should relish the options that lie before them.

“Where do we want to go from here? The choice is ours,” he said repeatedly, almost as a mantra, as he detailed the forks during Soy Canada’s recent annual meeting in a tent on a western Manitoba farm.

Innes said choices include the introduction of gene-editing technology, the challenges of Canadian soy’s lower-protein beans, the opportunities in the food-grade market and the need to have both a strong voice for soy as well as work with other commodities.

Canada’s unusual soybean production breakdown — about 25 per cent is non-genetically modified and much goes to the human food market — means the industry fears the benefits of gene-editing in breeding will come to this country slower than elsewhere, but Canada has advantages that compensate.

“Canada is better able to serve our customers who want the benefits of this tech with our world-class identity-preserved system and our ability to maintain confidence across a variety of crops,” Innes says.

Canadian farmers grumble about the discounting that hits their soybean crops because of a history of low protein levels compared to other exporters’ crops, but there are a number of ways that can be addressed, he says.

The industry can better explain Canadian soy’s unique protein composition and other elements. It can also use breeding to close the gaps.

“More consistent varieties that deliver more stable and high-quality beans to our customers and farmers is possible,” Innes says.

Canadian food-grade soybean producers and marketers also have choices to make about whether to focus on boosting the performance of individual companies or expand the share of the international marketplace for food-grade soy that Canada could own.

Soy Canada is only 10 years old, formed when the industry realized it had grown to the point where it needed to be treated independently of the pulse and special crops organizations in which it had traditionally resided.

While the crop is not large compared to canola and wheat, it is important in Ontario and Quebec and has recently become Manitoba’s third-most important crop. Farmers in Saskatchewan have been keen to get into soybeans, but today’s varieties are still a bit too fragile and long-seasoned to handle high Prairie conditions well enough for acreage to explode.

If variety development keeps adding toughness and shortening days to maturity, many expect to see western acres surge.

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Soy Canada on March 28 announced the rollout of Sustainable Canadian Soy, a program it said will be available for the 2023 growing season. Exporters and handlers who supply customers that have been asking for sustainability verification are lined up to manage the program.

The verification would include a third-party assessment for a “small number” of participating growers each year, Soy Canada said. Interested IP and food-grade soybean growers can sign up through participating exporters or grain handlers.

Brian Innes, the executive director for Ottawa-based Soy Canada, described the new verification as “a market-driven solution that will enable our industry to compete for market share and enhance the sustainability of Canadian farms and the entire soybean value chain.”

MORE READING: Feds open up consultations for sustainable ag strategy

The Sustainable Canadian Soy program is set up using the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA), a whole-farm benchmarking and assessment system developed by the Swiss-based not-for-profit SAI (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative) Platform. According to SAI, over 200,000 farms in over 40 countries are now in FSA-verified farm groups.

For growers, taking part in Sustainable Canadian Soy includes completing an on-farm sustainability questionnaire on matters of “economic viability, social responsibility and environmental stewardship,” Soy Canada said.

So far, “interest in the program is coming from users of food-grade and identity-preserved (IP) soybeans,” Innes said.

Soy Canada said it developed Sustainable Canadian Soy with “extensive” farmer and industry consultation, and with some funding through the federal AgriAssurance program.

Soy growers in Canada are already following sustainable practices, Innes said, and many of those already take part in value-added programs that “meet the needs of customers and offer premiums.”

Companies taking part in Sustainable Canadian Soy so far include The Andersons, Hensall Co-op, Ceresco, Snobelen Farms, Sevita International, St-Lawrence Beans and Huron Commodities.

The FSA “focuses on meeting customer needs and values” and lines up with the Sustainable Canadian Soy program’s priorities, including land use efficiency, “climate-smart” farming, soil health, water stewardship, biodiversity and habitat, Soy Canada said.

FSA is also benchmarked to other soybean programs worldwide such as The Roundtable on Responsible Soy, International Sustainability and Carbon Certification, and the U.S. Soy Sustainability Assurance Protocol, Soy Canada said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Statistics Canada’s 2019-20 principal field crop acreage report, released April 24, estimated 5.65 million acres of soybeans are to be planted in 2019. That’s a 10.6 per cent drop from 2018, but on par with the acres planted four years ago.

Ron Davidson, the executive director of Soy Canada, said producers had two terrific years that resulted in acres increasing dramatically from 2016.

Statistics Canada data indicated there were 7.28 million acres of soybeans grown in 2017 — a jump of 30 per cent from the previous year. Those acres produced nearly 7.64 million tonnes of soybeans, with Ontario producing half.

Soybean acres in 2018 slipped to approximately 6.32 million acres for about 7.18 million tonnes produced. Of that, in excess of 58 per cent of production was in Ontario.

There is a possibility of soybean acres increasing in at least some areas of the country. Wet conditions, such as what southern Ontario has seen this spring, could see farmers switch from corn to planting soybeans, said Rob Gamble, chief economist for Grain Farmers of Ontario.

“For the next 14 days it looks like the weather could turn a bit for the better. If the spring continues to be wet and delays corn planting, producers could potentially make that switch to soybeans,” he said.

Recently, China has impeded soybean imports from Canada. Reports stated inspections by Chinese officials that normally took a couple of days were now taking a few weeks. Also, China claimed to have found ants in at least one shipment.

“Officially, the Canadian government has not received information regarding any problems with Canadian soybean exports to China,” Davidson said.

Since the beginning of January, soybean exports have slowed to a trickle with only 11,000 tonnes sent to China, according to the Canadian Grain Commission. At the end of December, Canada shipped about 3.06 million tonnes to China, with over 666,000 tonnes exported that month alone.

Gamble indicated farmers could further alter their planting intentions because of uncertainty surrounding China.

“If the (situation) got worse with respect to China or the current price decline continues further, you can see changes for sure,” he said.

Davidson noted China imposed a 25 per cent tariff on U.S. soybeans, which forced a steep drop in prices between May and July 2018.

“Canada does have a basis, which lets our price vary a little bit from U.S. prices. We were severely impacted by the world prices on the market,” he said.

So far this week alone, soybean prices on the Chicago Board of Trade have been sliding downward. At the close of trading Thursday, soybeans lost more than eight cents to close at US$8.43 per bushel.

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

Table: Soybean planted-area projections for 2019 by province, in thousands of acres. Source: Statistics Canada.

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The federal government has stated there have been no export issues outside of canola.

“The current actions taken by China are limited to canola seed, and we have not received any indication of broader disruptions,” a spokesperson with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada said via email.

“Aside from issues with canola seed, at the moment shipments of other grains, oilseeds and pulses continue to be accepted by China.”

However, Jim Wickett, a farmer at Rosetown, Sask. and board member with the Western Canadian Wheat Growers, stated otherwise.

“Shipments that are booked are still going ahead, but no new (bookings) are happening for the summer or the fall,” he said, commenting that China of late has been very hesitant to commit to any Canadian agricultural products.

Meanwhile, Soy Canada executive director Ron Davidson said there are a few matters to that need to be considered.

“We are not aware of any official restrictions,” he said in regards to China.

As of the end of February, Canada has exported nearly 3.06 million tonnes of soybeans to China this crop year, according to the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC). That’s almost two and half times more than in the 2017-18 crop year.

“We’re really happy to have sold that much to China,” Davidson said.

Canadian exports of soybeans to China dropped off during the winter, he noted, attributing that to most of the 2018 crop already being exported primarily to China, with little stock left in Western Canada.

As for Eastern Canada, he said the freeze-up of the St. Lawrence Seaway prevented more exports.

China often purchases South American soybeans once they are available, much to the detriment of other exporters including Canada, he said.

In November, Canada’s soybean exports to China were 1.34 million tonnes, dropping significantly to 666,200 tonnes in December. In January only 74,000 tonnes were exported and that number fell to 27,000 tonnes in February.

In other data from the CGC, wheat exports for the 2018-19 crop year have been far ahead of the previous crop year at 1.27 million tonnes compared to 444,000 tonnes. Exports in December peaked at nearly 440,000 tonnes, and then dropped to 115,000 tonnes in January, but improved to 158,300 tonnes in February.

Barley exports for the current crop year amounted to 938,500 tonnes by February. That month 229,500 tonnes were exported to China, up from 51,600 tonnes in January.

Peas were at approximately 716,200 tonnes so far this crop year, compared to 688,800 tonnes the previous year. In January, China accepted 83,600 tonnes, but that fell to 37,600 tonnes in February.

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

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The privately-held Winnipeg grain firm recently announced it would not renew its funding commitments to the Canola Council of Canada, Flax Council of Canada and Soy Canada. The company said its total annual funding to the three groups totalled over $1 million, with the lion’s share going to the Canola Council.

A Richardson representative wouldn’t put a dollar value on its annual commitment to Soy Canada, but did say Tuesday its current funding commitment to the Ottawa-based organization expires at the end of March.

Asked about the company’s decision, Soy Canada didn’t respond directly to Richardson’s announcement or mention it by name, but did say the annual membership fees paid by industry members — such as seed companies, crushers and exporters — are based on sales or volume and vary from a minimum of $1,000 to a capped maximum of $25,000.

The annual contributions to Soy Canada from grower organizations, meanwhile, are instead based on volume of production and are not capped, the organization said.

Richardson’s soybean business is in seed and input sales and crop marketing; its oilseed crushing and processing operations are devoted to canola.

Soy Canada said Thursday via email it “values highly the participation of every member of the organization” and added that contributions by industry members “have a minimum multiplier effect of approximately 30-fold” when combined with funding from all sources.

Richardson, however, said Tuesday it now finds the value of membership in the three industry groups has fallen short of the financial cost and many of the issues each organization handles could instead be addressed on a “multi-commodity” basis by an overarching oilseed council.

Contending that it “currently has a strong value proposition,” Soy Canada said Thursday it’s nevertheless “committed to ongoing engagement with both existing and prospective member organizations and companies on potential opportunities for further refinement of all aspects of its operations.”

Members of the soy value chain have established a “collective and realistic target of a further doubling of production” by 2027, Soy Canada said, adding it “will invest in and act as a primary facilitator and catalyst for the realization of this target.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Winnipeg-based, privately-held Richardson International has announced it will not provide funding in 2018 for the Canola Council of Canada and the Flax Council of Canada, nor will it renew its funding commitment for Soy Canada when it expires at the end of March.

For Richardson, the decision means withdrawing yearly commitments which have recently totalled over $1 million annually, the lion’s share of which went to the Canola Council, according to Jean-Marc Ruest, the company’s senior vice-president for corporate affairs.

The company has found the value of membership in the industry groups has fallen short of the “significant” financial cost, he said in an interview Tuesday.

Many of the issues addressed by such councils, such as non-tariff trade barriers and matters of government policy, don’t vary from crop to crop, he said, and the companies that handle, purchase and export the various oilseeds are generally the same. Such issues, he said, could be handled on a “multi-commodity” basis.

Ruest said he’s found it striking that when he takes part in a meeting on a canola issue, the other participants are generally the same as those he sees in meetings for the other commodities.

“I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘put all the organizations together and call them an oilseed council,'” he said, but he sees synergies in such a move for the organizations’ funders if there’s “good value” for the money the company is being asked to spend.

Ruest emphasized that the company’s decision is not a matter of retrenching, as it continues to fund organizations such as Cigi and Cereals Canada.

The idea of regrouping as a multi-commodity oilseeds council has been “thoroughly discussed” over the past year at the request of some Flax Council members, according to that council’s chairman, Brian Johnson.

“Through these discussions, it became apparent that the formation of an oilseed council would not materialize in the foreseeable future,” Johnson said in a Jan. 8 release announcing the council would shut its Winnipeg head office in a cost-cutting move.

The Canola Council, meanwhile, said Tuesday it “regrets” Richardson’s decision but noted its other existing core funders “remain committed to the CCC and moving the industry forward as a united value chain.”

However, the council said, its board will now lead a process to “confirm industry priorities and the CCC’s role in the sustainable growth and profitability of the sector.”

That process, the council said, “will be guided by a continued focus on building efficiencies through partnership and collaboration to make the best use of member contributions.”

The Canola Council said it would continue to follow its current 10-year plan, dubbed “Keep It Coming 2025,” with its focus on increasing canola yields and production to meet global demand.

That said, “it’s time for a thorough review of our priorities and approach to ensure it fully aligns with changing industry needs,” council president Jim Everson said Tuesday in a release.

“Our board met last week to begin this process and will be reaching out to our members and stakeholders in the months ahead.”

Four canola grower groups — the Canadian Canola Growers Association, SaskCanola, Alberta Canola and the Manitoba Canola Growers — on Wednesday reiterated their commitment to the Canola Council, noting they form its “largest funding group.”

The groups said they “fully appreciate the value they receive from the Canola Council of Canada for the substantial grower dollars they contribute,” noting the council’s international marketing and promotion efforts, its market access work, its “science-based” agronomy support and its work in raising and administering research funding.

A representative from Soy Canada was not immediately available for comment Tuesday. — AGCanada.com Network

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As soybean acreage grows, so do the number of people involved in soybean industry organizations.

On June 14, 2014, Statistics Canada reported in The Daily that, “Nationally, soybean area could reach a record high for the sixth consecutive year, rising 23.5 per cent from 2013 to 5.6 million acres.” Soybeans are still “new” here — from 2005, and 2008, there were less than three million acres seeded in Canada each year. For comparison, keep in mind that Canadian farmers seeded 24.1 million acres of wheat in 2014.

Here in Saskatchewan, farmers grew 300,000 acres of soybeans in 2014. This is remarkable, considering that many of us had never even seen them growing a few years ago.

Provincial organizations

In Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers (SPG) collect levies when farmers sell soybeans, even though the industry has come to agree that soybeans are not, in fact, pulse crops at all.

The association formerly known as the Manitoba Pulse Growers has a special page on its website to explain the difference. “By definition, soybeans are not a pulse because their seed is not dry (it contains high amounts of oil), and while they are healthy, they are not as nutritious as edible beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas.”

In February, 2015, to reflect the fact that it’s been collecting levies from soybean growers, the Manitoba Pulse Growers changed its name to the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers. In the press release, executive director Francois Labelle said “While soybeans are not technically a pulse, they have become a large part of our business through increased acres and sales.” They even updated their logo. The new logo, they say, is “representative of a bean seed sprouting, indicative of growth.”

The Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers do a lot of soybean agronomy research. The list of 2014 research on the group’s website includes a cyst nematode survey, a study of soybean residue management and a look at the effect of lower seeding rates on yields in western Manitoba.

In the last few years, the SPG has also made efforts to include soybean agronomy and bring information to farmers.

At the SPG regional meeting in Regina in 2015, Tom Warkentin, a plant breeder at the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, told farmers “We are doing a little bit of breeding work on soy. Not a lot, but we’ve started a bit.” They’re partnering with an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada breeding program, and testing genetic material with a shorter growing season. New varieties are being grown in test plots across Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Soy Canada

The SPG and the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers forward a portion of the levies they collect to Pulse Canada in Winnipeg for the promotion of the pulse industry. But now, levies collected from soybean sales are going to Soy Canada instead. (Just to make it a little more complicated, Pulse Canada’s Courtney Hirota explained by email that “Some soybean funds do go to Pulse Canada for specific projects”).

So, if you’re growing soybeans in Manitoba or Saskatchewan, you’re now sending five cents per tonne to Soy Canada. If you didn’t know that, don’t worry, it’s new.

Soy Canada is a new organization, but some of the people at the table will have worked together before. Soy Canada’s executive director Jim Everson explained to me that the former farmer-driven Canadian Soybean Council and the Canadian Soybean Exporter Association “are folding members into Soy Canada.”

Farmers in Quebec and Ontario also pay five cents per tonne to belong to Soy Canada. And farmers aren’t the only paying members: soybean crushers pay two cents per tonne, to a maximum of $20,000. Soybean Exporters and seed companies pay tiered fees, up to $20,000 per year.

“It’s a value-chain organization,” Everson said, meaning that Soy Canada represents the entire Canadian soybean supply chain, from seed suppliers to farmers to exporters and processors. Picture the Pulse Canada business model, but for soybeans.

As Pulse Canada does for lentils, one of the things Soy Canada is doing is promoting Canadian soybeans to the world. “We just finished a trade promotion to Japan,” Everson said.

For now, Soy Canada has just one person in its Ottawa office — Jim Everson. In areas like transportation or sustainability, where other commodity associations have the same goals, Everson said, “we want to partner with those organizations that are leading those efforts.”

If you want to get involved with Soy Canada, your best bet is to become active with your provincial association. John Bennett is the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers representative to the Soy Canada board. In Manitoba, Ernie Sirski (brother to Grainews columnist Andy Sirski), represents the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean growers. Manitoba farmers are also represented on the board by member-at-large Edgar Scheurer.

“The key thing for us is that it’s a new structure,” Everson said. By pulling together all of the components of the industry, he said, “the whole is more significant than the sum of the parts.”

While western Canadian farmers make up only a small part of Canada’s national soybean acreage, Jim Everson hopes to represent us well. With the large increase in western Canadian soybean acres, Everson said, “Where is that product going to go? What export markets are there? What sensitivities are there in terms of market access?”

For western Canadian farmers, Everson said, Soy Canada is “making sure that the product they grow finds markets and that those products are predictable. We hope that the western producer sees a lot of value in it.”

A few other groups

Besides these, there are still a few more Canadian associations out there dealing with soy-related issues.

Soybean 20/20 is a “project” more than an organization. It was founded by the University of Guelph, the Grain Farmers of Ontario, and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

For an example of the type of work that Soy 20/20 does, see page 21 of this issue. Soy 20/20 was a major driving force behind Health Canada’s recent acceptance of the claim that consuming soybean foods can lower cholesterol. Acceptance like this is a major marketing coup for companies involved in selling soy-based foods.

Soy 20/20 is working with Soy Canada, in fact, it’s actually a dues-paying member.

The Canadian Soy Foods Marketing Council bills itself as “an initiative of Soy 20/20.” This Council runs a website (soyforlife.ca), which points out all the health benefits of soy food products. The soyforlife.ca website says it’s a “group of Canadian farmers and suppliers, soy food processors and manufacturers.” There are several other members of the Canadian Soy Food Marketing Council listed — these include Syngenta Seeds Canada, Pioneer Hi-Bred Ltd., Parrish and Heimbecker and Bunge North America.

The brochure on the soyforlife.ca website shows the normal photos of healthy soy products (tofu, edamame beans, cooking oil), but there was also a picture of something that I’m pretty sure is an ice cream sandwich. I’m in.

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