Royal Highland Show 2008

Oil Seed Rape Cooking Oil and Biofuel

WFU Members and students learnt quickly about Cooking Oils and Bio Fuels at the 2008 Royal Highland Show.

The HGCA Oil Seed Rape crusher was a great success with children and adults alike. Children loved turning the handle and Farmers were very keen to know if there was a similar crusher that they could use at home (larger version and electrical model!!) We were amazed at the considerable interest shown by the children who all want to GO GREEN.

Primary Schools all wanted a copy of the new Oil Seed Rape and Industrial Book - I gave away all my copies and have another sheet of orders. These series are grabbed up in Scotland by the schools for their adaptability to all lessons and courses. We have two new teachers in our own area who have gone away with all my copies.

The Oil Seed Rape crusher was a different direction for us this year and I must say more enjoyable than we had thought. The Rape crusher was a great draw and children were amazed at the small amount of oil that came out of a heap of seeds, and that cattle feed could be made from oil seed rape. One little girl asked if the cows ate the oil on their salads!!
We managed to extract 7 litres of oil over the four days of the show and Princess Anne asked us how many little workers it took to make that amount.

We had marvellous input from 2 Borders Companies, one who makes cooking oil and one who makes bio-diesel.

Borderfields Ltd from Berwickshire sent us samples of Cooking Oil and information cards and the children were able to see that the Crushed Oil has to be well cleaned and filtered to use for cooking.

The Natural House Company (Iver Salvrson) sent us samples of biofuel production at all stages from crushing to the final product. They made us some extremely technical and colourful posters which showed the whole process. The company run seven vehicles from this plant.

A company who makes bio-fuel pods sent us a pod to demonstrate size and viability of using rape oil - Green Fuels Ltd Gloucestershire - AND THERE WAS A TREMENDOUS INTEREST IN THIS!! We were extremely busy with children visitors as usual, but the bio-fuel was also a tremendous draw to farmers, many of whom would be interested in producing themselves or forming a co-operative. There was a lot of interest from Irish farmers (North and South).

The ethical Issue reared itself and I would say that maybe 25% of farmers were against bio-fuels mainly because they had not realised that cattle feed was main component of crushings. After they realised this a lot changed their minds. The fact that they could harvest over 100 gallons from 1 acre and that poorer hill ground could be used was an encouragement to many smaller farmers.

We are very grateful to HGCA for their continued support of our stand at Royal Highland Show, enabling us to show crop production methods and outcomes to Scottish children. They love the hands on projects and usually come back next year to see what we are doing.

This activity worked in with our Alternative Energy theme at the RHET Children's Discovery Centre this year, where 205 school parties visited the Show via RHET. 25,618 CHILDREN VISITED THE SHOW THIS YEAR OVER THE FOUR DAYS. It is no wonder that the bearing on the Crusher kept getting overheated.

Footnote: The Crusher was very safe for children to use as long as there was an adult present at all times. Children do not put their hands near the funnel- but a few times FARMERS would put their hands in and when admonished told us :QUOTE "We know what we are doing we are Farmers"!!

Debbie McBean.