Two Chatham agribusinesses receive federal government investment

Sep 12, 2017

Feds investing up to $3.7 million to help the companies reduce environmental footprint

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Two Southern Ontario agribusinesses are the recipients of a federal investment of nearly $4 million.

Greenfield Global, the largest ethanol producer in Canada, and Truly Green Farms, a 45-acre tomato greenhouse, both located in Chatham, Ont., received the $3.7 million investment. The money will be used to install equipment that allows waste heat and carbon-dioxide to be transferred from Greenfield across the road to Truly Green Farms for the greenhouse to use on its tomato crops.

Part of the project includes installing heat condensers on Greenfield’s facilities. The heat will then be pumped to Truly Green Farms through a series of pre-existing underground lines.

“Greenfield will dry and condense the heat to about 65 C,” Hilco Tamminga, director of operations for Truly Green Farms, told Farms.com today. “When (the air) comes back to our side it will go through heat exchangers again so that we can harvest the heat and send it into our greenhouse for use.”

This kind of initiative can help agribusinesses address climate change concerns and operation costs, says Howard Field, president and CEO of Greenfield Global.

The investment is helping Greenfield “lower energy use and heating costs,” he said in a Sept. 11 release. “We are expanding our opportunities for sustainability, both in our products and how we produce them.”

And being able to combine sustainable efforts with potential profit is an important part of any business, said Tamminga.

“The sustainability piece of the project is crucial,” he told Farms.com today. “Plus the economic factors are there too. When you’re able to hit on both of those points, you’re heading in the right direction.”

The project between Greenfield and Truly Green Farms began in 2012 and has created 200 new jobs since it started.

Top photo: Hilco Tamminga/HortiDaily.com

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.