Chickpeas aren’t on the endangered species list yet, but this year they have become rare on the Prairies.
Market watchers say they weren’t surprised when Statistics Canada reported that prairie acreage this year has plummeted to 200,000 acres this year from 500,000 last year.
Climax, Sask., pulse marketer Mike Kirk said it’s hard to find a chickpea crop in his area – formerly the heart of the growing region.
“It’s been a quick demise,” said Kirk, who thinks fewer than 1,000 acres of chickpeas have been planted this spring in his area, compared to more than 20,000 last year and 70,000 the year before that. The reason is no mystery.
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“Most farmers are pretty sharp. When they start losing money, they have a pretty fast response,” said Kirk.
“They get out in a hurry.”
Chickpeas were a shining star for many in the late 1990s, when acreages exploded, turning it from an almost unknown crop to a mainstay for some southwestern Saskatchewan farmers.
But as chickpea area grew, disease problems began to ravage crops and farmers found it hard to sell them.
Sparse markets and severe production problems pushed many growers out of the crop.
“The returns just weren’t there and the production risk was just too high,” said Kirk.
Stat Publishing analyst Brian Clancey said chickpea exports have sagged since the 2002 harvest, ensuring that few acres would be planted this spring.
“By the time of last year’s harvest, we knew production this year was going to be down,” said Clancey.
“The experience was so bad, a lot of growers vowed to not grow them again. People are completely fed up with it.”
Clancey said the marketing problem with chickpeas is partly due to poor quality prairie crops last year.
“If we’ve got good quality chickpeas, we can sell them anywhere in the world.”
But quality problems will continue to bedevil the crop until crop breeders can develop disease-resistant and weather-hardy varieties.
Other marketing problems arose because prairie farmers began producing chickpeas in huge amounts without guaranteed steady markets.
“This was the biggest field trial in the history of Western Canada,” said Clancey.
Some grain companies contracted chickpeas or bought them without lining up buyers, and lost a lot of money.
Those companies have now backed away from contracting acreage, and that has left producers with no ability to lock in a sale price, Clancey said.
Kirk said farmers will grow chickpeas again, but they will have to be led back to the crop by the market.
“I think guys will get back in again when the market signals there is an opportunity,” said Kirk.
Clancey said the disease problem also has to be solved. He hopes breeders don’t ignore chickpeas now that acreage has dropped, but he fears they will.
“Until we get varieties that are more resistant than we’ve got, we’re not going to see any real recovery.”
