GUELPH, ON [September 15, 2015] – The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) and La Coop fédérée are proud to announce that they formed a partnership to examine all aspects of a cornstalk supply chain to support new bioprocessing projects in Eastern Canada based on extracting cellulosic materials for bioproducts.
This joint initiative, to be completed in early 2018, involves the assessment and validation of several supply chain configurations and the development of the required management tools for efficient operations. The cost assessment study released today was led by Lynn Marchand from Ridgetown Campus, University of Guelph. The report provides information on field harvesting costs, storage, transportation and potential economics for a hypothetical biorefinery. Project developers now have a benchmark tool based on Ontario data.
“We now have the most updated information on supplying cornstalks for commercial purposes” says Don McCabe, OFA President. “The supply chain is no longer a bottleneck.”
“This report provides the first set of Ontario generated data on the cost of harvesting cornstalks using the most advanced equipment currently available on the market” says Patrick Girouard, Director, Renewable Energy & Bioproducts at La Coop fédérée. We now have the benchmarks that we needed in order to initiate work on the optimization of a cornstalk supply chain in Eastern Canada. We will also now concentrate on developing the management tools around the harvest for efficient delivery.”
The report is available through the OFA website at www.ofa.on.ca/issues/biomass.
This project is funded in part through Growing Forward 2, AgriInnovation Program, delivered through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Funding was secured through coordination provided by Bioindustrial Innovation Canada as part of the national BioProducts AgSci Cluster.
For further information contact:
Don McCabe
President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture
519 821-8883; 519 331-6175
Stéphanie Couturier
Communications Advisor, La Coop fédérée
514 217-8503
stephanie.couturier@lacoop.coop