By TOM BUTTON

Soybeans are Ontario's fastest-growing cash crop,
with $560 million in farm-gate income from the 1994
crop, double the $278 million farmers earned in
1990.
Now, strong news from the oil sector promises to
enshrine soybeans as the province's dominant crop
far into the future.
CanAmera Foods at Hamilton and ADM at Windsor are
both building extra soybean processing capacity,
and by the 1996 harvest, they'll be crushing a
combined 50 million bushels a year, up from their
current 40 million.
As well, soybean breeders and food makers are
finding ways to use specialty soybean oils to keep
oils such as canola, olive and palm  oils out of
the Ontario market.
International demand, sparked by wage increases in
China, promises to keep prices strong for years to
come, says Rick Watson, chief oilseed buyer for
CanAmera Foods in Canada. New GATT and free trade
accords open the doors even wider.
"The true market forces are going to come through,"
Watson told the annual meeting of the Ontario
soybean marketing board in Chatham. "We're going to
have great prices and great opportunities."
Soy oil is the world's number one edible oil,
Watson pointed out. World consumption is 19.4
million tonnes of soy oil a year, compared to 15.3
million tonnes of palm oil, 10.3 million tonnes of
canola oil, and 5.6 million tonnes each of lard and
butter.
Oil consumption climbs with income, Watson added,
and nowhere is that more true than China, where soy
oil imports have surged from 95 metric tonnes four
years ago to a projected 1.1 million tonnes in the
1995-96 crop year.
Even so, China's per-capita oil consumption lags at
8.5 kilograms per year, seven kilograms short of
the world's 15.5 kg average, and far below Canada's
35.4 kgs and the U.S. peak of 44.2 kgs.
Yet at current growth rates, Chinese consumption is
growing by one billion pounds a year, Watson said.
If China's 1.1 billion people reach the world
average, they will need an extra supply of oil
greater than all the oil currently produced in
North America. 
Oil is selling in the North American market at just
over US$0.25 per pound, Watson said. "But every
penny that the oil price goes up means an extra 10
cents a bushel in the price of soybeans."
Extra oil demand is also expected within North
America, especially as breeders produce soybeans
with oil compositions targetted at specific food
products.
Soybean oil consists of five separate fatty acids,
each with its own processing and health
characteristics. Saturated fats, including palmitic
and stearic, are solid at room temperature, so
they're excellent for products such as margarine,
said University of Guelph soybean breeder Jack
Tanner. They've also give a product long shelf
life, although they get knocked by nutritionists as
contributing to heart disease.
Soybeans also have polyunsaturated fats, including
linolenic and linoleic fats that are liquid at room
temperature and are healthier, although they go
rancid faster.
And soybeans contain the mono-unsaturated fat
called oleic acid that may be the healthiest of
all, and is a key reason for the growth in olive
oil sales. Olive oil is 77-per-cent oleic acid.
Experimental new canola varieties are 90-per-cent
oleic.
Conventional soybeans, by contrast, are 22-per-cent
oleic. In Guelph's breeding program, however,
researchers have created varieties with 60-per-cent
oleic acid, and promise to quickly break through
that barrier.
Researchers will churn out varieties with different
oil contents aimed at uses as varied as chocolate
bars, shortening and salad oil, Tanner said. "There
won't be one perfect soybeans," he said. "Instead,
we'll have a better soybean for each niche market."
Tanner points out the trend is already reaching
U.S. farmers, where Pioneer Hi-Bred is developing
markets for soybeans that contain two-per-cent
linolenic acid, down from eight per cent in normal
soybeans.
 Soybean grower John Underwood welcomes the trend.
Underwood  built a soy oil extrusion plant at
Wingham in 1994 to tap into the specialty oil
market under the brand name Sunfield Oil Seeds. The
plant is small by industry standards, with output
of just three to five per cent of plants owned by
CanAmera and ADM, but it has enormous market
potential, Underwood said.
Underwood's plant is already certified to produce
organic soy oil and kosher soy oil, and he believes
that Canada's expanding ethnic base and aging,
health-conscious population are opening up new
market niches. 
"In wheat we've moved away from white to hard red
and soft red, protein segregation, and
identity-preserved varieties," Underwood said.
"That's a forerunner of where the soybean industry
is going to be in five or 10 years.
"Specialty soybean oil may or may not mean
additional premiums, but they will hopefully secure
a marketplace that wasn't there previously.
"From our position, diversity is almost the same
word as opportunity."

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