KINDERSLEY, Sask. – Canaryseed dust sprinkles the face of David Nobbs during a walk around the processing plant he manages in Kindersely. It prompts a litany of facts about the crop.
He talks about the misconception that bird owners in New York are the main consumers of canaryseed. That distinction belongs to Mexican bird owners. He also relates how the seed first arrived in Canada in the trunk of a Cadillac and how an average bird consumes two tea cups of seed a year.
Nobbs periodically punctuates the canaryseed facts with his belief that it is a fantastic crop, albeit itchy when it escapes from the auger.
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His passion for canaryseed extends to all special crops.
His influence can be seen in the crops that are grown on a 3,700-acre farm he helps manage in Lancer, Sask., with his father, Laverne, and brother, Lindsay. They grow durum, red lentils, coriander, chickpeas and canaryseed.
Nobbs handles the spraying and markets the product while Lindsay does the seeding, harvesting and day-to-day jobs.
“We’ve got a highway tractor and a Super B and I don’t even know how to drive the thing,” said Nobbs.
His initial exposure to special crops came from a summer job, conducting seed treatment research on field plots at the University of Saskatchewan. It was the first time he saw chickpeas being grown.
His true apprenticeship came once he graduated from university with a degree in vocational agriculture and got a job as a chemical sales rep with Gustafson.
It was 1996 and the chickpea industry was in its infancy. Gustafson had a new seed treatment product for the crop called Apron and Nobbs became one of the firm’s pulse crop specialists.
Nobbs got to know Saskatchewan’s top special crops growers, including Lloyd Affleck, former director of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers and former chair of Pulse Canada.
“He taught me a lot about (chickpeas) and he kind of gave me the bug to be involved with the special crops industry,” said Nobbs.
In 2005, Nobbs became a director of the pulse growers. He is also vice-chair of Pulse Canada.
Nobbs rode the chickpea wave at Gustafson, selling products for a crop that rapidly crested the one million acre mark in Saskatchewan. But farmers realized there was more product than markets for it and they also struggled with disease.
Chickpea plantings plummeted to 130,000 acres.
“Basically, when chickpeas crashed, so did my career at Gustafson,” he said.
Nobbs’ wife, Lee, said he was constantly researching special crops to figure out which ones were best suited to their growing area.
Lee, an investment adviser for Credential Securities who was raised on a mixed farm near Eatonia, Sask., said her husband devotes much time to board meetings and travelling the world.
After leaving Gustafson in 2002, Nobbs landed a job as general manager of Canpulse Foods, a special crops processing firm in Kindersley, where the couple lives.
“It was the worst possible time anybody could ever come into the special crops industry. Plants were going bankrupt and margins were terrible. It was a tough, tough time,” he said.
Nobbs was familiar with the company, having once served as a director on its board.
Canpulse’s initial plan to build a red lentil splitting facility in Saskatoon was scrapped after drought spooked investors. The farmers instead purchased and upgraded the AgPro Grain cleaning facility in Kindersley.
Today, Canpulse has three cleaning lines for 60,000 tonnes of canaryseed, green lentils and red lentils annually and also handles coriander and peas.
“It seems like today we’re one of the few companies that isn’t looking at a splitting facility,” said Nobbs.
