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The Citizen, 1996-03-20, Page 31On the job Steve Whale is one of six full-time employees at the Underwood's Sunfield OilSeeds processing plant located near Wingham. Receive $5.00 per bag off your next Seed Corn Order with this coupon. Coupon redeemable at Edgar Feed & Seed Edgar's Feed & Seed Special Spring Prices Corona 2550 Heat Units Bayfield 2775 HU Maple Donovan 2700 HU Brussels 2675 HU Ultra Alfalfa Alfalfa Leaf Hylite Brand Alfalfa Empire & Leo Trefoil Hyland 2298 (grain corn) $69. 00 a bag. Special Blend of Plateless Seed $49. a bag. Hyland 2297 grain corn $115.00 a bag 1 free Hyland 2240 grain corn $109.00 a bag 1 free Hyland Soybeans Hyland Grass Seed Maple Glen 2600 HU Marathon 2750 HU Enterprise 2700 HU OAC Eclipse 2750 HU Carola Timothy Matua Bromegrass Double Cut Red Clover with 10 with 10 ' Corn Bag with 10. Hyland 2272 (silage) $69.00 Plus 1 Free I WE CAN BROADCAST OR FROST SEED GRASS SEED We can deliver and we can order in bags or in bulk Niel Edgar 519-357-2122 Wingham AL\ Hyland Seeds/ THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1996. PAGE A-7. Agriculture 1996 Underwoods study options for soybean handling Continued from A-5 Daniels, Midland (ADM) in Wind- sor, processes about 2,000 tonne per day. ADM's North American Dper a tions process 70,000 tons. There was also Victory Soya Mills in Toronto, owned by Central Soy and CVOP (Canadian Vegetable Oil Processors) in Hamilton, owned by Canada Packers. Through the decade, John says, soybean acreage grew from 300,000 provincially to approxi- mately one million. "It has actually usurped corn acreage in Ontario." Then in 1991 Central Soya closed Victory after purchasing CVOP. They grouped all their Canadian operations and were now known as Canamera Foods. This was a concern to the Underwoods as they had already experienced difficulty shipping to Toronto and Hamilton crushers because north- ern Huron is at the tail end of the harvest, which meant long line-ups and delhs. Windsor was a last resort simply because of geogra- phy, which meant higher freight costs. "We began to wonder how just having the two plants might exacerbate the situation for us," says John. Underwoods looked at options that ranged from not handling soy- beans at all to handling edible beans, including white hilim and the natto type. Then they heard about a system, created by the Uni- versity of Iowa for the processing of an edible oil. "We toured the plant and thought there was a place for this type of technology in Ontario." According to John, there are about seven major oil seeds grown worldwide; soybeans are the biggest and most widely used crop. They have 20 per cent oil in their natural state. The extraction of oil from the soybean has been done by two main systems. There is a mechani- cal screw press, which is the pro- cess used at Sunfield and the solvent extract systems which rely on chemicals to dissolve the oil away. The former system was used exclusively in the '40s and '50s, says John, but screw presses get down to six per cent residual oil while solvents get down to one per cent. Up until the mid 1960s the only reason to process was to get the oil as the meal had no value. Because the solvent could take out extra oil it became the preferred choice and the mechanical system sort of disappeared, said John. Continued from A-6 based in a rural Huron village. Present owner, George Hubbard who purchased the plant from Dougherty in 1963, was first involved in the rutabaga industry as a 16-year-old in Brighton. Today, with help from his son, James, Hubbard promotes the industry establishing a commercial market through food terminals, which then What has made this system viable once again is the changing nutritional requirements of live- stock with higher performance genetics. "Pigs and poultry need energy dense diet to support the genetics so farmers have started supplementing their diets with fat. There was a demand driven requirement for a ration with ener- gy. Soybean meal was now much more attractive for a feed manufac- turer." The other change John says, was the processing update using the screw press. "It lends a greater effi- ciency to processing. The old sys- tem put through about eight to 10 tons a days. By combining extru- sion and screw pressing 20-25 tons per day per line can be achieved. This is significantly energy and labour saving." The first step in the processing of the beans is the removal of the hulls. The beans are then dried and put through the extruder which takes ground up beans, heats and compresses them, then forces them out a small orifice. At this point they are in a semi-fluid stage, resembling porridge. The beans are then put through a screw press which is a heavy duty auger, surrounded by a perforated cage. The rotating action of the shaft forces the oil out the slats. The oil is then filtered and the meal ground before shipping. "Probably 90 per cent of the meal stays within 50 km of here and 80 per cent of the beans comes from the same geographic radius," says John. The oil moves into the edible trade where it's processed into com- mercial shortening used by the restaurant and bakery trade. Most crushers produce a 48 per cent protein meal, though Under- woods is 46 per cent protein and six per cent fat. The majority flows into monogastric markets for pigs and poultry. Oil is shipped from the plant every other day. Sunfield is a kosher certified plant meaning the oil produced is suitable for manu- facturing into products acceptable to the Jewish communities. "Another interesting aspect is how technology is going to change the face of agricultural over the next few years. While major crush- ers do an excellent job of producing a quality product in large amounts, they want to keep it very homoge- nous. " "Research on the other hand is offering more qptions on what channel the product into the large stores. Hubbard's presently grows rutabagas on 300 acres of land, located within five miles of Blyth. They are the only rutabaga process- ing plant in north Huron; there are several plants in Exeter. Hubbard's employs eight full-time workers and in a bumper year ships 250,000 bushels to markets in the U.S. and Toronto, says James. farmers can produce. Research is being done on growing crops for the energy trade and pharmaceuti- cal products. There is a real diver- gence there which creates an opportunity for places like this to take advantage." John says there is also a lot of focus on changing fatty acids, so they are modifying the percentages to give unique characteristics such as improving internal processing efficiencies to create healthier oils, or increasing stearic acid for a dif- ferent end result. "(Farmers) are no longer just pro- ducing beans, but beans that will have a target market," he says, adding that this type of research is also happening in other crop prod- ucts such as corn and canola. "We went through an industrial revolution in my father's day from horses to tractors and automated production. Then there was the chemical revolution and now I see a biotechnical stage. Some may argue that we are getting ahead of our time, but the other side is that we are just speeding up Mother Nature's process." There is an advantage to smaller processors, John says, in that it's easier to do a small run for one company. "Large processors can't justify that. If they can't do a large number of bushels it's too insignifi- cant." Some of the new products of research are likely to be more inter- esting to small plants than major crushers because of run sizes, John says. "It may be difficult for a major processor to do a clean out of its process line for a product that takes one and a half days to pro- cess. That same volume would rep- resent a good chunk of our production." Underwoods are also working with a U.S. company to identify and extract enzymes from soyhulls. These enzymes may find uses in industrial processing and edible markets, says John. ' "What's probably most signifi- cant about our business is not huge profits, but the concept of what we're doing. You can take new technology on a community based scale. Many small plants with five to 20 employees have the same impact as a single large employer. Technology as a whole has a lot of opportunity for small communi- ties." "Technology has offered a tremendous number of opportuni- ties. What we're doing is applicable to hundreds of other things. Per- haps, one person can take what we're producing and see an oppor- tunity for something else." Hubbards carry on tradition