40 business elite canada
H
JULY 2015
But a growing number of shoppers are
looking for additional health benefits in
their food and when it comes to oil, there
are few that can compete with one of
the latest to hit the market. Camelina oil,
made from an ancient oilseed, is one of
the country’s newest cash crops, and was
only recently approved by Health Canada
in 2010 as a novel food able to be sold into
the human food market.
Saskatchewan-based Three Farmers can
be thanked for bringing the nutritious and
flavourful oil to the Canadian market. And
there really are three farmers. Dan Van-
denhurk, Ron Emde and Colin Rosengren
are second- and third-generation farmers
living and working on neighbouring lands
near Midale in the province’s southeast
corner. In the mid-2000s, Rosengren at-
tended a seminar about crops well-suited
to Saskatchewan soil and camelina, which
wasn’t currently being grown in the coun-
try, piqued the farmer’s interest enough
that he planted a test crop. But though it
was being used in foods in northern Eu-
rope and as a biofuel ingredient in Canada
and the U.S., there was no market in Can-
ada for camelina for human consumption
at that time.
