The bioeconomy of Canada is growing — and that has repercussions for the breeding of several star “bioeconomic” crops.

What is the bioeconomy? At the core, it is the use of renewable biological materials (from trees or plants/crops) to produce anything outside the realms of human food and animal feed. The sector is usually divided up into four subsectors. One is biochemicals; for example Milligan Biofuels in Foam Lake, Sask., makes and markets fuel conditioner, road dust suppressants and more from off-grade canola. Others are biohealth (e.g. CBD oil from hemp) and bioenergy (ethanol production from corn, directly burning crop residues, renewable natural gas).

The fourth is biomaterials, where wood or crop materials are processed to some extent to achieve uniformity and added to things like concrete.

Canada’s first national bioeconomic strategy was launched in May, developed by Bioindustrial Innovation Canada and its partners and supported by $200,000 in funding from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). The strategy, says AAFC, will help Canada meet its goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, develop new sector markets and more.

Having a formal national bioeconomic strategy matters, says BIC Executive Director Sandy Marshall, because it communicates to Canadians and others around the world that the bioeconomy is important to the entire country.

“A number of other countries have created similar strategies, and now that we have defined what our industry believes the priorities to be, we can leverage our advantages and maximize the value of our biomass,” Marshall explains. “Creating the strategy also helps us see what is holding us back in terms of regulations, supply chain and more, and how can we accelerate progress in these areas.”

It’s about speaking in one voice, he says, which helps investors and other groups have certainty in the sector.

And what does Marshall think government policy should focus on, now that the strategy is in place? In short, on encouraging innovation.

“We need clear and simple regulations to stimulate bioeconomic development,” he says. “An example of this would be regulations that promote the development and use of bio-based plastics by ensuring product manufacturers are responsible for their containers from cradle to grave.”

Camelina

While castor bean has been the historic leading industrial oil crop, camelina is superior, according to Jack Grushcow, president and CEO of Linnaeus Plant Sciences in Vancouver, BC, which has been breeding and growing camelina for almost 15 years. “The crop is really starting to take off,” he says, “and seems to now have a life of its own.”

Indeed, he and his team have created a new company called Smart Earth Camelina focused on increasing acreage and selling meal and oil.

Linnaeus’s breeding goals are to increase yield, disease resistance, seed size, oil quality and also to market a herbicide-tolerant variety. Camelina is an ancient crop, says Grushcow, but he says “in a relatively short period of time we've been able to increase the oil quality from 38 per cent to over 42 per cent and introduce downy mildew resistance. We have also been able to increase the seed size by over 40 per cent.” Increasing seed size in an oilseed is usually negatively correlated with oil yield, he explains, but Linnaeus has found an outlier that has allowed for significantly-increased seed size without an decrease in oil production.

Grushcow identifies the likeliest biggest challenge in breeding camelina to be finding new breeding material. He has reached out to gene banks all over the world and calls the breeding tools he and his team now have at their disposal “fantastic.” They have also partnered with AAFC to continue to provide “great material from our pipeline.”

Saskatoon-based AAFC oilseeds breeder Christina Eynck reports that she and her team are working on increasing the genetic diversity in camelina through two approaches. One is creating a diverse breeding population in collaboration with Linnaeus/Smart Earth Seeds and AAFC’s Isobel Parkin, specifically a multi-parent advanced generation inter-cross (MAGIC) population, which will possess completely new combinations of genetic elements.

“In this population, which is also used for exciting genomic research,” Eynck explains, “we are hoping to see agronomically superior camelina breeding lines and lines with interesting and beneficial traits that we would use for the introgression of these traits into varieties.”

Carinata

It’s the high erucic acid content of carinata oil which makes it suitable for over an astounding 1,000 potential or patented industrial applications. Biofuel made from carinata oil has received certification from the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials and Eynck says that it was used to power one of the first commercial airplane flights fueled by any biofuel.

In terms of breeding goals, Eynck says one of the most important is early-maturing varieties.

“Current varieties are about 10 days later to mature than canola,” she notes. “Herbicide tolerance and disease resistance (sclerotinia, alternaria and clubroot) are other traits we are working on. We also develop germplasm with high erucic acid content (at least 55%, for industrial applications) and low glucosinolate content (for feed applications).”

Eynck notes that seed oil content has risen substantially since the carinata breeding program started at AAFC over 25 years ago. “Dr. Kevin Falk, my predecessor, made great progress in increasing the oil content,” she says. “Our advanced breeding lines regularly show an oil content of over 40% and certain lines possess oil contents up to 50% in certain years.”

In terms of how difficult it is to breed for higher oil production, Eynck says it’s similarly challenging to canola as these crops are closely related, have the same ploidy level and share a genome. She notes that carinata breeders have access to a broad variety of strategies (pedigree breeding, mutation breeding, doubled haploid production) and that development of hybrids is underway. Indeed, she reports that “prototypes have already been evaluated by our industry partner, Agrisoma Bioscience.”

Soybean

High-oleic soybean oil (HOSO) is another bioeconomy product gaining strong interest. Rob Roe, commercial manager Omni Tech International in Nova Scotia, reports that current industrial uses for this oil include lubricants such as engine oil and grease. There is also progress being made, he says, to transform HOSO into a synthetic-type oil that competes with synthetic petroleum-based engine oils and high-performance gear oils. Oil for tire products and surfactants are also under development.

High Linoleic soybean oil (HLSO) is not produced commercially yet, but Roe says leaders at the University of Guelph in Ontario (where the variety was developed) are looking for a licensing partner.

“The oil has been tested for use in coatings/paints where it demonstrated significant performance benefits versus conventional soybean oil, conventional sunflower oil and linseed oil,” says Roe. “Other potential uses are in polyols, inks and epoxies products.”

With regard to which bioeconomy soybean traits are needed, Roe says most lubricant manufacturers want an oleic content above 75 per cent and further-reduced saturates and linoleic and linolenic levels.

“Manufacturers of coatings and paints will likely want higher levels linoleic and lower linolenic and low saturates,” he notes. “Both industrial manufacturing segments want consistency in the fatty acid profile and secure reliable supply chain support.”

Hemp

Besides fibre, hemp’s hottest bioeconomy value lies in its cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabinoid (a class of compounds also found in cannabis) that is used for pain relief, stress reduction, sleep assistance, epilepsy and arthritis treatment.

Health Canada approval of high-CBD hemp varieties requires three years of Canadian field trials and a THC level at or under 0.3 per cent. However, achieving higher levels of CBD is easier said than done. How much CBD is produced by a given plant or line can be greatly affected by yearly growing season conditions — and the flowers must also be carefully harvested and handled to preserve the CBD. Hemp flowers were only allowed to be legally harvested and sold to licenced cannabis producers for CBD extraction starting last year. The Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance (CHTA) says somewhere between 15,000 to 20,000 acres of hemp were harvested for that purpose in 2018.

CHTA Executive Director Ted Haney says Canadian hemp acreage is predicted to reach 450,000 by 2023. Some varieties will be dual-purpose (oilseed and fibre) and some tri-purpose (early harvest for flowers as well). Various research projects are going on this year in New Brunswick to study hemp as a potential option in the potato rotation.

Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC)

BIC is a non-profit government-supported bioproducts/services business ‘accelerator.’ Since 2008, it has worked to build strategic capital investment in small and medium-sized enterprises. Directly, it has invested more than $13 million in nearly 30 of these enterprises and leveraged a further $270 million during investment rounds. The jobs provided by these new businesses now exceed 2,700.

BIC only has funding so far for Ontario and has built a successful foundation in the Sarnia area, supporting a busy ‘biochemistry cluster’ there, and a staff person has been hired to do the same in eastern Ontario. Some of the firms that BIC has supported include the Cellulosic Sugar Producers Co-operative, Vive Crop Protection, Origin Materials and Advonix. Another, Firerein in Napanee, produces a bio-based fire retardant from corn starch, and Mirexus Biotechnologies in Guelph converts sweet corn starch to glycogen nanoparticles that can be used in many products in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and more.