THE general rule for any company is that if you are not moving ahead,
you are falling behind.
In agriculture, moving ahead means investing in research to improve
yields and find more markets. When the Canadian pulse industry is
measured by this yardstick, it comes up short.
Pulse production is one of the few recent success stories in western
Canadian agriculture. Acreage has gone from almost nothing 15 years ago
to about 6.7 million acres today with sales of $1.2 billion. Pulses
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pay farmers’ bills and have sparked a modest rural economic revival,
thanks to more than 100 processing plants.
Peas, lentils, chickpeas and beans now cover an area about half as
large as canola. It is an amazing accomplishment given the shoestring
funding.
Canadian pulse researchers get $16 million in public and private
investment, 10 percent of that enjoyed by canola researchers.
Australia, with one fifth the pulse acreage, spends the same as Canada
on pulse research. On a dollars-per-acre basis, the United States
spends three times as much and Europe is somewhere in between.
Canadian pulse growers want to increase their production. They like the
rotational benefits of the crops, their ability to fix nitrogen and
that the market is relatively free from subsidized competition.
But to propel the pulse industry forward will require much more
research and market development.
For example, the explosive growth of chickpea acreage in the last three
years coincided with production problems in other producing countries.
With production recovery elsewhere, prices could fall. To retain market
share, Canadian producers must have lower costs of production.
Most Canadian pulse varieties still have poor bred-in disease
protection. The toolbox of crop protection products is small compared
to other crops.
Equally important is the need to find new markets. One of the reasons
soybeans are such a successful crop is that soy components are found in
a seemingly endless variety of processed foods, from drinks to sausages.
Pulses also have components that could be more valuable than the whole
grain.
Pulse Canada, the industry’s umbrella association, is developing a plan
to give pulses the research priority needed to address these needs. Its
goals include funding to support more pulse researchers, creation of
research networks and a new facility for chickpea and lentil research.
The report is worthy of the financial support of growers, the pulse
industry and federal and provincial governments and needs quick action.
Markets are evolving at an ever faster pace and success goes to those
with the speed and vision to grasp them.
