Program Item Details
TITLE: Bill Hunter, President and Chief Operating Officer, Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc., and Co-Chair, Alberta Forestry Research Institute
SUBJECT: #114 THECIS: BioProducts Collaboration Between Agriculture and Forestry
SYNOPSIS: .
AUDIO: Download Audio (mp3 format)
TRANSCRIPT:
Intro: Also addressing the THECIS workshop on the future of bioproducts and the collaboration between agriculture and forestry was Bill Hunter. Bill is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries near Boyle, and he’s a founding member of the Alberta Forest ry Research Institute. Bill believes that with all the competing pressures on forested land and our natural resources, the need for agriculture and forestry to start working together is urgent.
Bill Hunter
BH: Everything takes time. There’s nothing you pull off the shelf, especially when you are talking about research. Most things take at least ten years to rationalize and look at what all the potentials are. We have been working with the Alberta Research Council now for a couple of years on the opportunity of hemp and flax pulp, as well as the straw commodities that might be available. So I see the pressures coming down on the forestry landbase and the expectations of society are changing so rapidly that there is a huge sense of urgency. So I’d like to get the work done and make the decision once and for all.
CC: YOU’RE LOOKING AT POSSIBLY EVEN CHANGING THE NAME OF ALBERTA-PACIFIC FOREST INDUSTRIES TO ALBERTA-PACIFIC INDUSTRIES. WHY? HOW DOES THAT COME ABOUT?
BH: Well, I think we’re going to diversify in the future. I hope that would be the intent of our owners. But I think the new name for our company would be “Alberta Cellulose Industries”. Because it’s all about cellulose, especially when you are talking about our paper markets around the world. I need to convince the consumers that we can still give them quality fibre for their paper grades that incorporates that degree fibre, it could be the recycle and/or the agricultural fibre end.
CC: YOU’VE ALSO STARTED OUT SETTING OUT TREE FARMS. WHERE IS THAT CELLULOSE GOING TO GO? BECAUSE YOU’VE SAID IT MIGHT NOT GO INTO THE PULP?
BH: That’s true. We had established with our own ecosystem management practices on our FMA that we would indeed need to look at some ecological benchmarks. So in preparing to put that land aside, we thought we’d have to look at putting in at least 400,000 cubic meters of aspen-poplar farms to offset those opportunities plus clawback from the competition on the landbase.
But the technology is changing so fast and some of the research we’ve seen come out of the Toronto, Ontario area says that aspen, cellulose and lignin can be used in things, as I showed in the presentation, artificial skin and hard surfacing painted materials and diet supplements. At the end of the day, it’s how we generate the revenues for the shareholders. And whatever product line that we can support that gives them a higher return makes sense to them. And if we can influence science and technology to provide those opportunities, then that’s where we want to go.
So in eight years when the first crop is ready to harvest, it may very well go to something else that generates a higher return.
CC: HOW DO YOU SEE AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY WORKING TOGETHER?
BH: Well obviously we’re living in the same environment where we’re talking about soil, dirt, nutrients, water, sunshine, and we’re growing things together. So it’s only natural. They’re a cellulose based industry as well as us. And we have the same issues, whether it’s barriers in the ability to do research, to get funding, to get public support or just to access the landbase that’s required for our individual industries. It’s a neat way of collaborating and bringing it together.
CC: WHAT’S HOLDING YOU BACK RIGHT NOW? ONE OF THE THINGS THAT YOU CITED HAS BEEN GOVERNMENT COMPLACENCY.
BH: Again, government complacency may be overstated but it was highlighting that we have such a wealthy economy here generated by the energy group that there isn’t a political sense of urgency around how all of this ties together. We’re watching two industries slowly die in my opinion, both agriculture and forestry. We don’t see our children running out and joining forest companies or signing up to buy farms. We don’t even see them going to school in these two fields.
So we need reestablish that maybe from a life sciences perspective, Alberta knows they have a water conservation problem. They know there’s climate change signals coming down. Agriculture and forestry are the foundation in dealing with that in trying to ensure we have a healthy landscape to try and mitigate some of those problems that we’re anticipating.
CC: YOU MENTIONED SOMETHING YOU CALLED THE “CELLULOSE-LIGNAN INSTITUTE OF ALBERTA”. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET THIS OFF THE GROUND?
BH: Well, there is no “Cellulose-Lignan Institute of Alberta”. That’s a concept for the presentation today. But I think ultimately that’s going to happen fairly quickly. I know the U of A has designs around hiring some fibre research people so that we can do some detailed analysis about what those attributes are of the cellulose that’s available in this province. And, I only see this as being the springbroad. You need a vision to demonstrate leadership. So the vision would be the CLIA. And already the U of A jumped me on the way out of the presentation today saying, “We’ll build the building”. Here we go.
CC: WELL THAT’S ONE OF THE THINGS THAT CAME OUT OF THE DISCUSSION TODAY IN THE THECIS WORKSHOP IS WHO TAKES THE LEADERSHIP, WHERE DO YOU GET THE FUNDING AND WHAT’S THE MOTIVATION TO REALLY BRING THIS SENSE OF INNOVATION FORWARD? WHAT DO YOU SAY?
BH: It’s a combination. It’s private sector, it’s the government, it’s academia. Again, I tried to highlight in our scrum after the presentations that we need one unique leadership grouping, and I would probably say the Life Science Strategy or Alliance is probably the methodology we can use so we can focus everybody’s efforts. Funding money is so precious. And if we have any duplication or overlap, that’s a total waste of those valuable dollars. So again, one agency should take the lead from an umbrella point of view, see if we can’t create new economies, see if we can’t get collaborations between economies and take care of some of those environmental issues that we’re looking at in climate change and water.
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH, BILL.
BH: You're most welcome.
Bill Hunter is President and Chief Operating Officer of Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries. He is also the co-chair of Alberta Forestry Research Institute.
Interview starts at 20:28
FEATURED LINK: Alberta Agricultural Research Institute
FEATURED LINK: Alberta Forestry Research Institute
FEATURED LINK: Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc. website