Sask. facility to produce eco-friendly fertilizer made from peas, lentils and oats

Call for 'Agritech' practices B.C. announced Saturday that it's opening up more opportunities for vertical farming and other 'agritech.'

Protein Industries Canada and a group of companies are building a $19 million facility to produce an environmentally friendly fertilizer in Rosetown, Sask.

When completed, the plant will produce up to 6,500 tons per year of micronutrient fertilizer and create 25 jobs, Protein Industries Canada said in a news release.

Soileos is billed as a "sustainable, non-polluting, climate-positive micronutrient fertilizer" made from pea, lentil and oat hulls created from food processing.

Field trials on broad-acre crops such as durum, lentils and peas "demonstrated how Soileos transports zinc, manganese, and iron to plants – leading to improved protein content, yields and soil health, while increasing returns for farmers, minimizing environmental impacts, and bringing value to low-value by-products," the release said.

Protein Industries Canada is an industry-led, not-for-profit organization created to position Canada as a global source of high-quality plant protein and plant-based co-products. The federal government, through Protein Industries Canada, invested $7 million in the project.

The venture will be operated jointly by AGT Foods and Lucent, which operates as AGT Soileos.

AGT Foods founder and CEO Murad Al-Katib said Soileos returns carbon to the soil and reduces the need for nitrogen fertilizer application in future years.

“As farmers meet the challenge of boosting the sustainability of their agricultural management systems, the smart use of fertilizer will be key to achieving meaningful reductions in the carbon intensity of our cropping system,” he said in the release.

The facility is to be operational in October.