Great Plains banks on camelina

A renewable fuels company aiming to plant seeds for the next generation of biofuels has its sights on the Pacific Northwest.

As part of its stated goal of producing 100 million gallons of biodiesel by 2012, Great Plains Oil and Exploration is offering incentives to growers that plant the oil seed crop camelina, a biodiesel feedstock.

To entice Washington and Oregon farmers to plant camelina, Montana-based Great Plains is boosting its grower contract prices and offering seed replacement if crops fail to perform.

“We are at the tip of the iceberg on what this plant can achieve,” Great Plains CEO Sam Huttenbauer says in an e-mail. The key to camelina’s success lies in expanding acreage and exploring planting in new regions, he says.

Camelina is especially attractive to growers because of its ability to thrive on marginal land with little fertilizer and water, and because it can be harvested with existing equipment and works well as a rotational crop, according to Great Plains, which has proprietary rights to more than 60 percent of the world’s camelina varieties. As a non-food crop, camelina sits outside the food versus fuel feedstock debate. The leftovers from fuel production can be used to make animal feed, fiberboard and glycerin.

Great Plains’ moves to expand camelina production follow its 2007 partnership with global chemical company INEOS Enterprises, which is striving to position itself as a global leader in biofuel production.