Canola presents a golden opportunity

TASMANIA’S canola crops are hard to miss at this time of year and one company is hoping to see more bright yellow paddocks as demand for locally grown seed increases.

Macquarie Oil Company processes canola seed for use in animal and fish feed milling and demand for the oil is growing.

Rob Henry, who runs the company and processing facility on his farm near Cressy, said he was importing about 4000 tonnes of canola seed a year, but hoped that might change.

The addition of a new large customer meant the company would be processing about 6500 tonnes of seed a year.

Mr Henry said ideally he would like to source as much of that as possible from Tasmanian growers.

“It’s quite expensive to bring it in from the mainland and the seed quality isn’t as good as what’s grown here,” he said.

Mr Henry said this season they were paying the equivalent of Melbourne prices and growers could also receive bonuses for oil content.

“I think that once farmers know there’s a serious processor in the market who is prepared to pay top prices they will start growing more,” he said.

John Heard manages Cressy property Formosa and this season is growing about 72ha of dual-purpose canola.

Mr Heard said as well as the seed yields, the grazing value provided by the crops over the winter months made it an important part of the property’s cropping rotation.

“We winter a lot of our young stock on it and it’s valuable feed at a time of the year when you don’t get much pasture growth,” he said.

Mr Heard said canola also provides a useful opportunity for weed control.