Global pulse demand is expected to soar over the next couple of decades despite falling per capita consumption of legumes, according to a new report.
“The future looks very good for Saskatchewan for pulses. We can grow our industry and we will be able to grow our export sales,” said Brian Clancey, author of the World Pulse Outlook report.
Demand is expected to grow 10 percent in the coming decade and 23 percent from current levels by the year 2030 due to anticipated population growth in Asia and Africa, two areas of the world that eat a lot of pulses.
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Clancey, who produces the Stat Publishing newsletter, expects annual global demand for pulses to reach 73 million tonnes by 2030, up from 61 million tonnes in 2009.
Garth Patterson, executive director of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, said it is reasonable to assume Saskatchewan pea and lentil growers can capture three to four million tonnes of that new demand.
“We think Saskatchewan could be exporting seven million metric tonnes of pulses at a value of $4 billion by 2030,” he said.
Clancey believes the province’s share of world exports could be even higher than that given the four million acres set aside for summerfallow every year that could be converted to pea and lentil production.
“The land is there for a significant, dramatic increase in pulse production,” he said.
But his outlook wasn’t all rosy. The report details how per capita pulse consumption has been declining for decades around the world.
Consumption is expected to fall to slightly more than seven kilograms per person per year in 2030, down from 11 kg in 1990.
Clancey speculates the decline in pulse consumption is an offshoot of the Green Revolution, a 1960s agricultural transformation that saw the introduction of high-yield crops that made use of artificial fertilizer.
Farmers started growing more corn, wheat, rice and soybeans at the expense of pulses. Consequently, pulse supply dropped and prices rose, making it a less affordable food ingredient for poor people.
Clancey expects the decline to continue due to increased competition from biofuel crops, government policy aimed at moving farmers into more visible food security crops and people losing familiarity with pulses as a traditional cooking ingredient.
“Because pulses are out of our tradition, I really do believe that it’s a down trend that’s going to be extremely hard to reverse.”
Patterson agreed that it won’t be an easy problem to solve but Saskatchewan Pulse Growers has a project to help boost per capita consumption of Canadian pulses in key overseas markets.
The association is funding a research project with India’s Tamil Nadu Agricultural University that shows dehulled green lentils from Saskatchewan work as good or better than Indian pulses in traditional Indian foods.
