Jens Thomsen was the delegate for Centrovice at the Agriculture & Food Summit in Herning. He took the podium with an important message.
Jens Thomsen is not only a farmer on Vestfyn - he also works for Emmelev as a buyer of rapeseed.
So he had the background in order to take the podium at the Danish Federation of Agriculture and Food's delegate meeting in Herning and talk about rapeseed and the crop's many good qualities.
Rapeseed is an economically sustainable crop,which has a solid place in the crop rotation and works in the same way asfollow-on crops, as it is sown soon after harvest.
It collects nitrogen on the field and can be harvested the following summer. At Emmelev, political efforts are therefore being made to get rapeseed approved as a follow-up crop, he explained.
At Emmelev, the rapeseed oil is used forbiodiesel and today it is mixed into the diesel sold at the petrol stations with up to 7 per cent, but the potential is higher.
This year, they have invested in a calculation model which is being tested on individual farmers.
The model calculated individual CO2 footprints on the rapeseed from the individual farms. And used when selling biodiesel where you are billed for being able to delivera lower CO2 footprint. In the long run, this will be reflected in the farmer'sprice for rapeseed, said Jens Thomsen.
In the production of biodiesel, products are in high demand for e.g. the pharmaceutical industry a side benefit. So in the long term, it is not certain that biodiesel will be the main product.
Rapeseedcakes also comes from the oil mill, which today is mainly used for feed. But at Emmelev, they invest in fermenting rapeseed cakes, so that they can be used infood as plant protein, and which at the same time increases the shelf life of food, by mixing it in, for example, rye bread or meatballs.
This can help to maintain the value of the rapeseed cake and thus maintain or increase the value of our rapeseed in the long term.
However, Emmelev and other forward-looking companies experience bureaucratic challenges that take time and thus slow down development. As the investments are large and the money stands still in the approval process, solutions are needed, said Jens Thomsen.
An example is EU legislation that "food which has not been eaten to any significant extent in the EU before 1997 mustgo through a long and complicated approval process before it can be marketed inthe EU.
We need amore simple and streamlined process when companies develop the business beyond what is "normal" for the benefit of the value of our products, said Jens Thomsen.
