Latest report trims India’s pulse crop
Production was one million tonnes below average
India’s 2015-16 pulse crop just got a little bit smaller.
India’s Department of Agriculture this week forecast 17.06 million tonnes of combined kharif and rabi pulse production, which is down slightly from its February estimate of 17.33 million tonnes.
“(That’s) about a million tonnes below average,” said Chuck Penner, analyst with LeftField Commodity Research.
“That’s what I was expecting.”
The previous year’s crop was also one million tonnes below average, which is why India has been such an active buyer of Canadian pulses, drawing down supply in this country.
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Statistics Canada last week said there were 416,000 tonnes of lentils left in Canada as of March 31, well below the previous five-year average of 1.3 million tonnes.
Penner estimates 176,000 tonnes of that will be used for seed this spring, leaving only 240,000 tonnes available for export during the last four months of the 2015-16 crop year.
There was 1.24 million tonnes of pea stocks on March 31 compared to the five-year average of 1.46 million tonnes.
Penner expects India’s farmers to increase pulse acres when the kharif crop is planted in June. One of the crops they will plant is pigeon peas, for which Canadian green lentils are a substitute.
“That will probably soften demand for green lentils,” he said.
Forecasters expect average to above average monsoon rainfall in India this summer.
Penner puts little faith in those forecasts but he said the country needs an above average monsoon to replenish its parched soils.
