Cattlemen on Prince Edward Island fear they could lose a cheap feed source when the Irving Group’s Cavendish Farms potato plant starts using its peelings to generate biogas for heating.
P.E.I. Cattlemen’s Association president Darlene Sanford told CBC News on Wednesday that most cattlemen in the province use potato waste from processors as feed for their cattle and most of that waste comes from Cavendish Farms.
The company announced this summer that it would build a biogas plant at its facility at New Annan, P.E.I., northeast of Summerside, using its potato peelings to produce the gas.
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The company told the Summerside Journal Pioneer newspaper at the time that it expected to save up to 10 million litres of heating oil per year with the biogas plant online.
Sanford told CBC that cattle producers would have to find other economical ways to feed cattle — and barley, at $200 a tonne, wouldn’t cut it. The association said it had meetings planned for Wednesday and Thursday nights to discuss what to do next.
Cavendish Farms, owned by the New Brunswick-based Irving Group since 1980, makes frozen potato products for North American and world markets. It runs processing plants at New Annan and at Jamestown, N.D. (between Bismarck and Fargo).
