Oil seed plant opportunity for P.E.I. farmers

A new oil seed factory is nearly built in Kensington that will provide Island farmer with the option to grow an entirely new kind of crop.

'There's probably only two or three other plants like this in the world.' — plant manager Steve Howatt

Construction of the plant for Nature's Crops, a U.S. company, was delayed several months, which has led to fewer hectares of crop in the ground this year than was originally hoped for. There were only about 600 hectares of oil seed grown for the plant this year. Plant manager Steve Howatt would like to see twice that next year.

"We didn't expand the acreage as much as we would have liked to," Howatt told CBC News Thursday.

"As you can imagine, withholding a significant amount of seeds in storage for a long period of time, we wanted to be a little bit cautious."

The plant is already holding seed that was grown in 2009.

The plant is designed to process crambe, a new crop to Canada, and hemp. The oil will be sold to companies that make cosmetics and vitamin pills.

The province and Ottawa spent $6 million to build it.

"There's probably only two or three other plants like this in the world," said Howatt.

"It's really exciting. I believe this is a really good thing for P.E.I."

The company also wants to build its own storage facility, which should be completed before winter. The plant itself should be operating in November.