Burning wheat has more value than putting it in bread
by Rae Groeneveld

Agriculture is at a crossroads. Rising energy prices have increased farm input costs dramatically, further squeezing any margin there was for producing grains and oilseeds. While producers struggle to find ways to make a profit, others believe this trend to higher energy prices is what is needed to put more value into crops.

“If you take a look at what oil prices used to be versus wheat, it used to be a bushel for a barrel back in the ’60s. If you look now, it’s less than $4 a bushel for wheat in Chicago and more than $70 a barrel for oil,” analyzes Ken Rosaasen, an agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan.

It’s that change in value that is now making wheat more valuable as an energy source, to burn for heat, rather than to use for human food consumption.The big benefit of burning grain for heat is there is little cost to the producer to get the product into a form where it can be used as a bioenergy source.

“A few years ago when oil was at $15 a barrel, the food market was the premium market for wheat. But now with prices changing so dramatically, the rise in oil and the long-term decline in wheat, all of a sudden it has a different use.Wheat has a higher value again.”

Citing some preliminary research work in the United States, Rosaasen says the heat value of wheat makes it worth over $5 a bushel when replacing oil as the prime heating fuel.

While it may raise the value of grain, using grain for heat is also a good way to reduce heating costs and Rosaasen believes that is an opportunity for many rural communities.

“You could take a hospital, for example, or a local skating rink, those kinds of things would be able to use a grain-burning stove or furnace as their major energy source if natural gas and other energy prices stay so high.”

The recent volatility and upward trend to energy prices compared to the relative stability of low wheat prices are  making many people look at grain-burning stoves as a long-term option for low cost heat.

“Every time there was talk of a natural gas rate increase, we got a lot more phone calls,” says Franck Groeneweg, owner of Green Atlantic Grain Burning Stoves in Edgeley, Sask.

The concern over energy prices helped the company sell more than 80 units last fall.The average cost for a grain-burning fireplace is around $3,200.The company also sells grain-burning furnaces for complete home heating.

“With a bushel of wheat per day, we can heat an average 1,500 square foot house, which means we’re only looking at a couple of dollars per day at today’s feed grain prices.”

It’s the heat value of wheat that makes it such a good energy option. One bushel has been calculated to produce the same amount of heat as 20.8 litres of propane, 13.6 litres of fuel oil, 0.148 kilowatt hours of electricity and 0.159 cubic metres of natural gas.

At last fall’s high energy prices, you could have paid $3 per bushel for wheat and it still would have cost half the amount to heat your home as it would with natural gas.

“We are definitely serving more of a rural population because the grain can be found on the farm,” Groeneweg notes. “We are trying to sell more into the city, but at trade shows the main question we get is,‘Where am I going to buy grain from?’”

Being a producer, that frustrates Groeneweg because he knows how easy it would be for urban customers to create a supply arrangement with a grower.

“The big hang-up right now is some people are looking at grain as a food product, and what if we are running out of food? That’s a legitimate concern but there is a lot of feed grain out there right now that cannot be used for the food market.”

Ken Rosaasen says using grain for energy purposes is going to take a change in attitude.

“Farmers should think of their land as a solar collector and a net energy generator and we just need to figure out how to adapt to this changing energy world.”

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