Grant: Alliance Grants

The Canadian canola industry generates $30 billion per year, placing canola firmly as the highest earning crop commodity in Canada. Global demand for canola oil is expected to surpass 26 million tons by 2025; therefore the importance of a sustainable and profitable canola industry in Canada is critical. As a consequence of increased canola production to meet rising demand, in the next few years canola meal - a low value byproduct of oil extraction - will be generated at unprecedented scales. Although canola meal is used as an additive in livestock feed, excess canola meal is discarded as waste which leads to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. According to Statistics Canada, in the 2021/22 crop year the total supply of canola meal surpassed 5 million tons, with domestic use - including livestock feed - responsible for just over 12% of this supply. As a result, expanding the uses of canola meal to limit waste and GHG emissions will be necessary for Canada's canola industry to sustainably manage this accumulating biomass. To this end, our collaborative team spanning 4 universities and 6 partner organizations aims to solve this issue via a transformative biorefinery approach, centered on extraction, fractionation, and utilization of canola meal for broad applications in the Canadian agricultural sector. These include replacing petroleum-derived plastic films in agriculture, improving plant and livestock health using delivery vehicles for active ingredients, developing biodegradable scaffolds for cellular agriculture, and designing biobased electrodes for carbon capture and conversion. Each of these technologies will further improve sustainability by reducing GHG emissions, increasing farm productivity, reducing the amount of farm inputs by stabilizing active ingredients, and by reducing negative environmental impacts such as microplastic pollution. The proposed research therefore increases the sustainability of farms by converting canola waste that otherwise would have created GHG emissions into high-value products that reduce GHG emissions. Through this initiative, we will train over 40 HQP, including undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral researchers, directly bolstering the Canadian agricultural and cleantech sectors.