Few Canadian beans are consumed domestically. Instead, they are divvied up into small shipments and sent to 80 countries around the world.
The top destination is the United States, which consumed $59 million worth of Canadian beans in 2005, according to federal government trade data.
Next in line is the United Kingdom, which purchased $40 million of product. Rounding out the top three was Italy, which imported $15 million worth of beans, which are Canada’s third largest pulse crop.
The list of destinations that follows is extensive, ranging from Angola to Venezuela.
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“Beans are grown everywhere so people are consuming beans everywhere,” said Peter Watts, director of market innovation at Pulse Canada.
A little more than one-third of the way down the list, in 31st spot with $752,966 worth of purchases, is a country that has everyone in the North American bean industry salivating.
Mexico, a market where per capita bean consumption is among the highest in the world at 14 kilograms per year, is brimming with export potential.
With annual production averaging about 1.5 million tonnes, Mexico has been largely self-sufficient, supplying 95 percent of its own needs.
The remaining five percent has largely been supplied by the U.S., with Canada chipping in about 2,000 tonnes annually, according to Agriculture Canada’s market analysis division.
But that consumption pattern could change dramatically in the next few years.
Mexico’s bean market has been protected by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which established punitive duties on U.S. and Canadian bean exports exceeding an established quota.
In Canada’s case, that quota began at 1,500 tonnes in 1994 and expires at 2,203 tonnes in 2007. The out-of-quota duty falls from 133.4 percent to 11.8 percent over that same stretch. And in 2008 there will be no quota and no duty, just wide-open free trade.
The expectation is that North American exports will rise substantially starting this year because the Mexicans may have a tough time competing with the economics of North America’s higher-yielding bean crops.
Canada is poised to be the biggest beneficiary because in the past the U.S. had been guaranteed 85 percent of the available quota. That guarantee disappears along with the quotas as of Jan. 1, 2008.
“Canadian dry bean exports are expected to trend upwards with the elimination of the tariff rate quota,” said Agriculture Canada in its March Bulletin.
Ivan Sabourin, president of Roy Legumex Inc., one of Canada’s largest bean exporters, said there is much anticipation about the Mexican market in 2007 when the out-of-quota tariff drops to a manageable 11.8 percent.
“We’re curious to see how it is all going to unravel,” he said.
North American bean exports to Mexico usually amount to about 52,000 tonnes. Sabourin said that volume could easily double once the tariffs are completely removed, with Canada supplying a lot more than its traditional 2,000 tonnes.
“We could see a doubling to a 10-fold increase in Canada very easily,” said Sabourin.
A 10-fold increase would vault Mexico to sixth spot from 31st on Canada’s list of export destinations. That would make exporters happy because it is far more convenient to ship product within North America than to overseas destinations.
Mexico imports pinto and black beans. The beans are cleaned, bagged and shipped by rail in boxcars destined for Laredo, Texas and then on to Mexico City.
The U.S. also buys Canadian pinto and black beans but the vast majority of product moving into that destination goes in bulk hopper cars, which are unloaded at large packaging operations.
The U.K. and Italy buy navy beans for the canning market. Beans going to those overseas destinations move in bags that are either loaded into containers at prairie processing plants or stuffed into containers at the Port of Montreal.
Sabourin said the cleaned beans are either placed into huge tote bags or smaller 100-pound poly bags, depending on the destination. Shippers can fit 10, two-tonne tote bags into a container or 500-550 of the smaller bags, which tend to go to Third World countries where the containers are unloaded manually.
Did you know…
- Archaeologists think that people started growing peas and lentils more than 20,000 years ago.
- Lentils, peas and chickpeas have been found in Egyptian tombs that were built more than 4,000 years ago.
- Peas have been found in caves in Thailand that are more than 11,000 years old.
- For a side dish, chickpeas can be eaten fresh, fried, roasted and boiled or baked into a crispy snack food. They can be ground and the flour can be used in soup, dhal, and to make bread. When prepared with pepper, salt and lemon it is served as a side dish.
- In Chile, a cooked chickpea-milk mixture was given to infants to
control diarrhea.
- In the 16th century, chickpeas were believed to have aphrodisiac properties and it was recommended they should not be eaten by priests and scholars. There are reports of amazing sexual exploits achieved after eating great quantities of chickpeas washed down with camel’s milk spiced with honey.
- An Arabic recipe for a stimulating potion to be taken just before bedtime in winter, is made by heating the juice of powdered onions with honey and then adding crushed chickpeas and water.
- Touching a wart with a chickpea plant under a new moon, then binding it with a linen cloth, was thought to cure warts.
