Most analysts predict a vastly improved special crops harvest in 2004 despite a devastating frost. Quality is expected to be dubious but that won’t deter buyers, they say.
Agriculture Canada forecasts production will increase 29 percent from 2003 to 4.73 million tonnes. Total supply, however, will rise only 21 percent due to low carry-in stocks.
The agency predicts 2.95 million tonnes of peas, 770,000 tonnes of lentils and 55,000 tonnes of chickpeas.
Special crops processor and exporter Greg Simpson concurs with the Sept. 10 report except the chickpea number.
A record harvest of nearly three million tonnes of peas is attainable because yields have been “awesome” where he farms near Moose Jaw, Sask.
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“We’re seeing a lot of 50-bushel crops in this area.”
But because it is so late, crop quality will be poor. A field beside his home quarter was seeded on the last day of April and harvested 125 days later, 40 days longer than it normally takes to come off.
“There’s going to be loads of feed,” said the owner of Simpson Seeds Inc.
Frost damage on the lentil crop was worse than he originally thought. With about half the lentil harvest complete, he estimated more than 60 percent of Saskatchewan’s crop suffered injury. The majority will grade between No. 3 and sample.
Damage is spottier in the southwest and west-central regions of the province where some fields will make the top two grades. A few lucky farmers were blessed with “phenomenal yields” of 2,400 pounds per acre, which is more than double the five-year average. At 20 cents per lb. those fields will return $480 an acre.
“That’s a pretty nice cheque to take to the bank. It will go a long way to help them out for the rest of their farm.”
Simpson felt Agriculture Canada was too optimistic with its chickpea number. Disease has ruined seed development in the pods of many kabuli crops in his area, which were already exceedingly late.
“If an 85-day pea crop took 120 days, you can imagine what a 120-day chickpea crop is going to take to get in the bin.”
Stat Publishing analyst Brian Clancey anticipates few problems finding a home for Canada’s substantive harvest of low quality pulses.
He is forecasting a 3.09 million tonne pea crop, which means Canada will have to rely heavily on its traditional high-volume, low-price destinations.
“There’s still a whack of peas out there and we absolutely need to sell as many peas as possible to the Indian subcontinent, and we absolutely need to sell as many peas as possible to the compound feed industry in Europe.”
Each of those users will have to buy more than 700,000 tonnes of peas for Canada to reduce its stocks to a reasonable level.
“You can’t do that in a $6 market,” said Clancey.
But it doesn’t mean a big drop in pea values either because importers will take what they can get. Bids for 15 percent bleached green peas are selling at the level that No. 1 and No. 2 grades were fetching before the frost.
It’s much the same story for lentils where there has been serious drop in quality. He expects only five to 10 percent of the crop to grade No. 1.
Clancey said it will be critical for processors to remove frost-damaged seeds by using gravity tables and electronic colour sorters because they are “hard little things” that don’t cook well. But marketing shouldn’t be a problem for crops that are properly cleaned.
Only a small fraction of destinations require top quality lentils. Buyers in Italy and Latin America will be more than satisfied with No. 2 or lower.
“As a matter of fact, once you get into the off-grades, sometimes it seems like you ship more because prices are a little bit better,” said Clancey.
