The University of Saskatchewan's College of Agriculture and Bioresources plans to break ground this summer for the construction of new feed technology research facility.

The 12 million dollar feed mill will be located adjacent to the university's Saskatoon campus,

College Dean Dr. Graham Scoles says the feed technology research facility will focus on formulating new feed products from the grains grow on the prairies and adding value to those crops.

Dr. Graham Scoles-University of Saskatchewan

It really has two functions.

One is that we will use this of course to develop feeds for the animals that we use in our research to combine various ingredients into different feeds and so on, look at things such as extrusion and those types of processes.

Then the other is to do research in terms of the whole feed processing technology, how the nutrients in the feed are affected by the various processes that feeds go through as they are manufactured.

We have tremendous potential to increase our livestock numbers.

As a province the amount of value that we add to our crops whether it be through that type of a process or through other processes is pretty low and so, from the provincial government's point of view, they want to see more of our crops being utilized within the province and feed is a big part of that and we certainly have land and the ability to have more animals within this province and so that's one of the big drivers.

Dr. Scoles says the facility will work with a full range of ingredients, including cereal grains, oilseeds, pulse crops, coproducts from ethanol and biodiesel production as well as low quality ingredients and looking to produce good feed from them.

He suggests anything that can be done to maximize the value of these ingredients will significantly improve the bottom line of producers.