By Alice McFarlane

Saskatchewan farm recipient of federal money to reduce GHG emissions

Feb 3, 2022 | 4:00 PM

MELFORT, Sask. — The first projects have been approved under the Agricultural Clean Technology Program (ACT).

The federal government is providing $17.9 million for farmers and agri-businesses to adopt clean technologies in three priority areas including green energy and energy efficiency, precision agriculture, and the bioeconomy.

Wendland Farms Ltd. in Waldheim, Sask. received $251,000 in funding for a new high-efficiency grain dryer.

Bryce Wendland and his father have a 7,000-acre operation and have been farming together since 2011.

Wendland said he started researching new grain dryers a couple of years ago.

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“We got into some tougher harvests, namely 2018 and 2019, when we had snow in the middle of September on standing wheat, and just all-around ugly harvest conditions,” Wendland said. “We used our old dryer, and it did pull us through, but we quickly realized we were going to need something bigger, faster and just more efficient to accommodate the size of crops we’re growing and the combine power we now had.”

Wendland eventually decided on a large dryer built by Manitoba company Western Grain Dryer that holds about 1,800 bushels.

“The grain is kept in the dryer for a longer period of time. This results in a slow and gentle dry so the moisture can be removed from the kernel evenly. The other thing that happens is as the grain flows from the top to the bottom, it flows over triangle ducts and is constantly mixing. There are very few kernels that are over dried or under dried. This makes for an efficient and gentle grain drying process,” Wendland said.

The dryer uses natural gas rather then propane. Wendland said they believed natural gas would be less expensive and more environmentally friendly in the long run. He said Sask Energy has a calculator on its website on CO2 emissions that compares natural gas and propane.

“The calculator says drying about 100,000 bushels a week at four points moisture removal will save about six to seven tonnes of carbon. That’s just burning the gas, not having trucks on the road to truck the propane would be a further reduction in emissions,” he said.

Wendland said they want to be mindful of the environment and are stewards of the land. He said when it comes to grain drying, they want to be efficient.

“The whole program was really focused around being environmentally friendly and reducing your carbon footprint and we think that’s a great thing on our farm,” he said. “We’ve always been environmentally conscious, whether it’s putting sectional control on our drills or fertilizer equipment or spraying equipment, or even just recycling our chemical jugs when we’re done with them.”

Wendland said the timing was perfect to apply through ACT as he was just putting the finishing touches on the new grain dryer project.

“In July, I applied for the program through ACT, and it all went very good working with AAFC (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) and the documents all went very well and seamless,” he said.

The Wendland project is one of 24 totaling about $7.6 million to date across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW