Yield10 Bioscience announces winter camelina contract-production opportunity for farmers

Yield10 Bioscience Inc., an agricultural bioscience company, announced June 23 an open-enrollment program for growers for contract production of winter camelina.

Farms located in Montana and Idaho, as well as southern Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada, are eligible to participate in the program.

Yield10 is offering farmers offtake-production contracts for winter Camelina with net returns similar to canola.

One of Yield10’s primary goals is to establish camelina as a revenue-generating winter cover crop that is also a low-carbon source of feedstock oil for use in the growing biofuels market.

As a cover crop, camelina has the potential to help reduce soil erosion, improve soil quality, and reduce nutrient run-off from land that is used for row-crop production.

Yield10 is developing proprietary varieties of winter camelina that have been grown in field tests over the past three years.

“We look forward to engaging with farmers to introduce the positive attributes of winter camelina and the role it could play as a cover crop and in crop rotations,” said Darren Greenfield, senior director of seed operations at Yield10 Bioscience. “Based on our field work to date, I am confident that winter camelina will be a successful crop for growers in the U.S. and Canada, specifically within the regions of Montana, Idaho, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Our efforts during this winter season will be our first steps toward partnering with farmers to drive adoption of this promising new oilseed crop.”

In winter 2022-’23, Yield10 plans to contract with growers for planting high-performing, nonregulated winter camelina as part of an initiative to establish precommercial production and offtake relationships in the biofuels market.

Yield10 plans to expand the planting acreage going forward, introducing herbicide-tolerant camelina varieties to enable large acreage planting over time. Yield10 is already field-testing herbicide-tolerant camelina varieties this year to identify lead and backup lines for commercial development and regulatory approval.

Yield10 has outlined a commercialization plan for camelina as a platform crop to address three markets: camelina oil for use as a biofuels feedstock oil; camelina meal for use in animal feed; and longer term, PHA bioplastics produced from camelina for use as a biodegradable plastic.

For more information on Yield10’s camelina opportunities for growers, contact Greenfield at growers@yield10bio.com.