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| Last updated at 11:32 AM on 08/01/09 |
Taking the shock out of farm energy costs 
BY WAYNE RILEY
Farm Focus
The memory of $140-a-barrel oil brought George Scott to the Energy Solutions for Our Farms conference in Moncton.
“I have a lot of oil furnaces heating six acres of greenhouses,” said Scott, Managing Director of Scott’s Nursery Ltd. in Lincoln, New Brunswick. “After what happened with the price of oil this year, I’m looking for an alternate heat source.”
Scott was among nearly 200 people attending Atlantic Canada’s first energy conference specifically for farmers Nov. 18-19.
The event was held to find some answers to energy costs that are dramatically driving up the cost of farming and to look at opportunities to generate revenue from alternative energy sources.
While energy auditors showed how changes to lighting and heating systems can add up to thousands of dollars in annual savings, industry experts and farm entrepreneurs shared their perspectives on wind and solar power, biogas and piston-pumping biofuels made from crops.
The conference was organized by the region’s federations of agriculture, provincial governments and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, with funding from the federal Advancing Canadian Agriculture & Agri-Food (ACAAF) program.
Former Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture Executive Director Laurence Nason was prompted to organize the event in response to the panic created by this year’s fuel prices.
Every one-cent per litre rise in the cost of fuel increases Canadian farm costs by an estimated $27 million.
“Like so many issues in farming, energy was pushed to the forefront by a crisis,” said Nason.
“We wanted to take a step back and look at all of the issues involved with energy, including conservation, on-farm energy production, alternate sources of energy and the role we might play in greenhouse gas reduction.”
Janet Steele, AAFC’s Regional Director in Atlantic Canada, said the agenda was designed to let the conference live up to its name.
“Our starting point was that it is only an energy solution if it works on your farm,” said Steele. “We wanted people to come out of this conference with some concrete information on the short-term and long-term energy alternatives out there, both in terms of saving money and making money.”
Organizers also wanted to help the region’s farmers see where they fit in the larger economic and environmental scenarios of dwindling oil stocks and climate change.
Although the conference took place as the price of oil is falling, keynote speaker Thomas-Homer Dixon told the audience that the price will go up again and the problems caused by climate change will continue to grow.
“We are probably near the peak global output of oil. We are consuming six to ten times more oil than we are discovering,” said the award-winning author of the Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization.
“We are shifting from the petroleum age to the post-petroleum age.”
But the demand-driven rise in oil could actually work in favour of farmers by driving demand for locally produced food.
“You’re going to be increasingly competitive as a result of rising energy prices that are driving up the cost of food that’s brought from a long way away,” said Homer-Dixon.
“Ultimately, that should increase the resilience of our food systems to withstand aberrations and shocks outside the region and that’s a good thing.”
For farmers in the audience looking to cushion themselves against rising energy costs by becoming energy producers, the conference was both motivating and sobering.
While wind turbines, solar panels and biofuel crops make it possible to turn farms into power generation stations, the return on investment can take decades.
The cost of a wind turbine can range from $10,000 to more than $200,000.
Cedric MacLeod, president of MacLeod Agronomics Ltd., says renewable energy systems are not about jumping on the bandwagon of a trendy green energy technology. They are about making a serious, long-term energy investment.
“This is not a toy or a mid-life crisis sports car,” he says. “It can help get you off the grid and get you some energy independence.”
Biofuels developer Ray Carmichael is still optimistic about creating energy from crops but admits there are growing pains.
“Right now, the plastic shelf that I showcase our products on in our lobby is worth more than the profit we can get for those products on display,” said Carmichael, the Business Development Manager for Greenway Oil Inc.
The Waterville, NB refinery is owned by four potato farmers and specializes in biodiesel, fuel conditions and lubricants made from the oil of crushed canola, mustard and soybeans.
“I’m still confident in the future of biofuels but it’s going to require a combination of government policy, more distribution infrastructure, consumer willingness to pay a premium to save the environment and oil prices that make biofuels more cost-competitive.”
The federal government has set targets to have a five per cent renewable content in gasoline by 2010 and two per cent renewable fuel in diesel and heating fuel by 2012.
While concern over climate change and rising energy prices are leading to renewed interest in alternative energy sources, conference goers also heard that the cheapest energy is the kilowatt saved.
More than two dozen farm audits carried out recently as part of a pilot project in NB and NS found that farmers can reduce their energy bills by as much as 50 per cent with changes in heating and lighting.
The farm energy conservation pilot project has been a joint effort of farm organizations, provincial governments, environmental groups and colleges and universities, with funding support from AAFC.
The NS Department of Agriculture recently created a Farm Energy Specialist position to help farmers in that province with energy conservation.
Ron MacDonald, who helped set up the audits and spoke at the conference, was not surprised by the size of the energy savings.
He’s seen farms spending as much as eight times more on energy as other farms in the exact same kind of business.
“The biggest mistake most people make, farmers included, is that they don’t know how much energy they are actually using,” says MacDonald, who runs Agviro Inc, an Ontario engineering company specializing in farm energy conservation.
“Energy conservation should be the cornerstone of any farm energy program because once conservation steps are taken, the savings are forever.
“Most farms can save at least 30 per cent on energy efficiency with minimal investment.”
For Jim Gillespie, an apple and peach producer in Berwick, NS, the conference was about making connections with people who can help him reach his ultimate goal of making his farm completely environmentally sustainable.
“I want to have a farm that is not adversely affecting the environment, that is actually improving the environment in all aspects, including energy use,” he says.
He knows what is possible. His in-laws have turned their 200-year-old home into the oldest energy-efficient house in Canada using geo-thermal heat.
But Gillespie also knows that it has to happen in a way that fits with a farm budget that already requires him to work off the farm as well.
“It’s not going to happen overnight,” he says. “It’s going to happen in incremental steps.”
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08/01/09
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