"I'm just hoping that this little company takes off," says the grower. "If they do, I want to be at the forefront of that."
Most canola grown in Aroostook County goes to Canada, where canola was first developed by agronomists 30 years ago and where most North American canola continues to be processed. Canola, derived from "Canada oil, low erucic acid," is a close genetic mustard-family relative to rapeseed. Canola has been bred to remove inedible compounds (erucic acid) and ones with a biting, mustard flavor (glucosinolates). The United States Food and Drug Administration approved canola's use in 1985, and US farmers appear to be growing it with increasing regularity. But until this year, little canola oil was processed anywhere north or south of the Canadian border. "The whole local food movement encapsulates what we believe in," says Steve DeMaio, one of the partners who started Maine Natural Oils. "Why ship canola seed from Aroostook County to Winnipeg to have it come back as oil? We just think this is something that makes sense."
This winter, Maine Natural Oils, a new agricultural enterprise in the heart of Maine's traditional potato-growing region, built a mobile oil press at a warehouse in Houlton, I-95's northernmost town. The company squeezed 100 gallons of oil this month, and plans to press about 20 tons of seed into cooking oil this spring.
Three of the company's four business partners - DeMaio, Peter Sexton, and John Cancelarich - had talked about creating a biodiesel plant in northern Maine for years. The three eventually decided to extract an edible oil from the seeds of canola plant. In 2008, they formed a partnership with Doug Callnan, the owner of a local feed company, and the partnership purchased canola and mustard seeds from two family farmers in the St. John Valley. Now that they pressed their first batch, a few farmers have signed on to plant seeds for September's crop.
