A senior Indian government official says the country will halve its pulse imports due to prospects of a bumper crop.
India’s newest 2010-11 forecast puts the pulse crop at 16.5 million tonnes, up from 14.6 million tonnes in each of the previous two years.
The ministry of agriculture noted that the results will be achieved despite drought in some regions and the effects of cyclones, unseasonably heavy rains and a severe cold wave and frost conditions in other parts of the country.
Commerce secretary Rahul Khullar was quoted inThe Economic Times saying that the record harvest will cut pulse imports in half from the 3.4 million tonnes in 2009-10.
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Chuck Penner, president of Left- Field Commodity Research, said there may be politics in that statement designed to check food price inflation, but he believe imports will likely drop.
The recent frost may not have caused as much damage as first anticipated. Prices for peas and lentils at inland locations in India have fallen sharply after frost fears caused a rally. Importer inquiries to Canadian exporters have fallen as a result.
Penner said India’s winter or rabi harvest is just underway and by no means in the bin, but for now he’s sticking with his forecast for 16.5 to 17 million tonnes of pulse production, which doesn’t bode well for Canadian farmers.
“That does raise some warning signals in terms of exports for the second half of the year,” he said.
It doesn’t help that Statistics Canada found an extra 300,000 to 600,000 tonnes of peas in its latest stocks report.
“We actually have more to push out the door in the second half than we thought we did.”
Penner said it’s time for growers to consider marketing more of their yellow pea and red lentil crops.
“I’ve been saying all along, ‘watch the Indian crop and if you see that it’s looking decent get a lot more aggressive on sales. Don’t leave so much until the end of the year,’ ” he said.
Demand likely won’t soften until Indian product starts hitting warehouses in the last half of March. Growers should closely monitor pulse bids in India because there is typically a one or two week lag between those prices and Canadian bids.
Penner said the jury is still out on how much damage has been caused to India’s pigeon pea crop, which tends to be more susceptible to frost than other pulses.
If significant, that could boost green lentil prices because the crop is a good substitute for pigeon peas.
