Farmer sees soybean stocks as form of alternative energy

By Charlotte MacAulay

Using the stocks from soya beans to make burning pellets could now be an alternative for a St. George’s farmer.
Billy Somers, who farms beef and dairy with his brother and father, said he is working on his application for government funding that was announced on March 29 by the provincial department of agriculture.
Farmers have been asking the government for solutions to help lower energy costs said Wayne MacKinnon with the department of agriculture.
The funding, cost shared 60-40 by the federal and provincial governments, provides up to $1,500 to farmers for an energy audit to see if renewable energy is an option for them. In addition, up to $50,000 is available for installation of renewable energy systems such as wind, solar or biocrop burners.
Mr Somers hopes to be able to manufacture the soy bean pellets for their own use as well as have the opportunity to sell them for extra income.
He has already done some experimenting and the prospects look good.
“They burn a lot hotter than wood pellets because of the oil left in the pods and if we had it set up we could heat all our houses and the hot water for the milk house,” Mr Somers said.
Normally the stocks are just left in the field after the soy beans are harvested and this way there will be no waste he said.
The energy savings would be huge for the Somers’ as now the barn is run totally by electricity.
Mike Nabuurs from the PEI Federation of Agriculture said this is a good step towards helping the farmers reduce energy costs and save money.
“This program will help address the issue, but policy changes need to be made to ensure farmers can sell any excess energy they produce,” Mr Nabuurs said.
Further steps need to be taken to put cash in their pockets he said.
Gerritt Visser and Sons Potato Warehouse in Orwell already has a renewable energy source in a windmill.
Randy Visser said they installed it last year with the help of an immigrant investor’s grant.
Mr Visser says the new funding program is a good idea because if there was no assistance at all farmers wouldn’t be able to afford to do it.
“But the agriculture industry has significant challenges and at the end of the day we should be trying to figure out how to get more value out of what we are producing to generate more revenue,” Mr Visser said.