Last Tuesday, Mike Walton was taking a breather from contracting beans with Manitoba farmers.
There has been intense interest in beans this year. Growers started signing up to grow navy beans in the fall, when contract prices went as high as 30 cents per pound and the low Canadian dollar was giving an extra boost to the export-based market.
“There’s an awful lot of acres contracted already,” said Walton of Linear Grain in Carman, Man.
Linear buys beans for Hensall District Co-operative, one of three major Ontario-based exporters who have come to rely on beans from Manitoba.
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Traditionally, Ontario and Michigan were major bean growing areas. But growers there have been lured by new varieties of soybeans, which are easier and more lucrative to grow.
Manitoba farmers predominantly grow navy beans, along with smaller acres of several other types.
But Walton said several Manitoba contractors have been “reassessing needs” recently in light of farmer interest. He thinks farmers have already locked in returns for 130,000 acres.
Flo Beaudette of Roy Legumex Inc. in St. Jean, Man., said industry projections for 1999 bean acres in the province range from 110,000 to 200,000 acres.
That’s 25 to 60 percent more than Manitoba farmers grew in 1997. Beaudette said interest is so hot that there’s a shortage of seed in Manitoba for most varieties and types of beans.
Last crop year, farmers contracted a much smaller proportion of their crop, nonplussed by offered prices, said Walton. Those who sold on the spot market guessed right, he said, since prices rose to 30 cents per lb. after harvest. For 1999, contract prices have been in the still-profitable 25-cent per lb. range, said Walton.
“Conservative” bean yields start at 1,300 lbs. per acre, and some growers can reap up to 2,500 lbs. per acre, Walton said.
“It requires care, it doesn’t necessarily require special equipment,” said Walton, explaining new growers are trying beans because they’ve seen their neighbors harvest them successfully.
Beaudette expects Manitoba will be sold out of navy beans at the end of the crop year. They’ve been moving well at 27 to 28 cents per lb., delivered at Morden, Man. Farmers have sold out of pintos and several dealers are selling United States pinto beans to keep their traditional customers satisfied. Cuba and food aid buyers kept the pinto market rolling in the fall, he noted.
“The ’98 pinto crop dried up pretty quickly.”
Beans are also scoring high in the growing plans of southern Alberta farmers. Cam Bjerkseth of Agricore’s Bow Island plant reports strong interest in the company’s pooled production contracts.
“A lot of producers are hoping beans will be the one that pays the bills in ’99,” said Bjerkseth.
Last year, Alberta farmers grew more than 40,000 acres of pinto, pink, great northern, small red, and black beans.
Bjerkseth said he thinks plantings could rise by 10 to 15 percent in 1999. But the industry expects a large North American carryover of beans into the 1999-2000 crop year. Higher production across Canada and the U.S. could lead to bearish prices. He said farmers who are considering growing beans for the first time should look at returns over the long term.
