In early November, the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame will induct four new members, including a forage breeder, a canola believer, an entomologist, and a cattle genetics leader. This is the first of four interviews, each featuring one of the inductees.
Dr. Michael Eskin of the University of Manitoba is set to be inducted into the Canadian Agriculture Hall of Fame for his groundbreaking contributions to the early development and refinement of canola oil. Shaun Haney, founder of RealAgriculture, sat down with Eskin to talk about the incredible story of Canadian canola and Eskin’s role in its development. See below to watch the video, or download the podcast version to listen later!
Each year, approximately 20 million acres of Canadian farmland is covered in yellow canola flowers, but looking back, this acreage dominance is a relatively recent phenomenon, says Michael Eskin.
In the 1930s, a Polish farmer received some rapeseed from a friend and found that it grew well in the Canadian Prairie soil. It was then discovered during the Second World War that rapeseed oil made a good lubricant for marine engines. This need saw the acreage for rapeseed grow substantially in a short time frame in the country.
With the conclusion of WWII came the need to find new uses for this crop that had been established in Canadian agriculture, and development research began on what was then known as rapeseed. Some serious crossbreeding and novel discoveries about canola oil were happening at the time that Eskin made his way onto the scene, he says. Through this development work, researchers happened upon a very heart-healthy oil — canola.
The researchers, including Eskin, were commissioned to write a booklet by the Canola Council of Canada on the work that they had done, as well as any other related work to introduce professionals in the industry around the world to this new oil.
Fast forward a few decades and the canola industry contributes somewhere close to $30 billion a year to the Canadian economy.
“We had no idea at the time the impact it would have,” Eskin says.
In the interview above, Eskin talks about the changes that he has seen in the last five decades of food science, the way that scientific processes have changed, the need for collaborating with like-minded people, advice for upcoming food scientists, and the sentiment of canola stakeholders throughout the years.
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