Pulse Canada’s chief executive officer says he has never seen anything like it in the decade that he has been promoting exports of Canadian pulse crops.
After making deals in China last week that could increase pulse sales from $100 million to $500 million, Gordon Bacon told an April 14 telephone news conference from Beijing that the pressure for increased sales is coming from China.
“China presents this enormous market potential, and I think the most interesting thing to note is that for the first time in 10 years in my work in market development, we’re getting very strong pull from the consuming side,” he said.
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“Often in market development work, we’re out there trying to create interest and demand. We’re doing that here, but we’re being pushed very hard (by) our Chinese counterparts to move quickly.”
Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, who led a week-long trade mission to China, said the consumer pull is across the board.
“We’re starting to get push from consumer groups on the ground here in China, from consumer associations and manufacturing, re-processors and so on,” Ritz said.
“They’re starting to put pressure on their own government to get opened up again on beef. A lot of the help that we got on pork came from the Chinese industry itself, so we’ve got a tremendous amount of allies on the ground here and of course we’ll use every avenue we can.”
The pulse industry came out the leader as Ritz announced agreements for pulses, malting barley, canola and purebred swine genetics that he said could be worth $700 million to $800 million in annual sales.
The Canadian Wheat Board signed a three-year deal to sell at least 500,000 tonnes of malting barley worth an estimated $100 million at current prices. Prices will be negotiated when deals are made.
The canola industry expects sales of at least $70 million annually as a result of investments to convince the Chinese that adding canola meal to dairy rations will increase milk production.
The trade mission travelled to Inner Mongolia, a dairy area, and the Canola Council of Canada will spend $500,000 in field trials to demonstrate the benefits of canola meal.
As well, the canola council said it will spend $1 million, with help from Ottawa, on field trials in China “to identify ways to minimize the risk of blackleg.” China is blocking canola imports because of blackleg in the Canadian crop.
“It’s definitely going to take some time (to lift the restriction),” council president JoAnne Buth told the news conference. “We knew that. We still have some technical issues to work through.”
Ritz also announced the reopening of a $30 million market for purebred swine genetics that has been closed since last year’s H1N1 flu virus pandemic.
For pulse growers, he announced an end to Chinese restrictions on pea imports because of fears of health effects from naturally occurring selenium. He said Pulse Canada had signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s cereals and oil association to sell more product as a health supplement to be added to Chinese staple foods.
Ottawa will also spend $1 million to help the industry develop research and processing capacity to produce pulse flour to sell to China. Bacon said there were discussions about adding Canadian pulse ingredients to the rice porridge that is a childhood breakfast staple.
“Something as simple as finding a way to add a teaspoon of pea flour to a Chinese dumpling will mean tremendous opportunities for Canadian pulse growers and healthier meals for Chinese families,” Ritz said.
Buth praised Ritz for his trade promotion efforts.
“Having watched and seen the minister this past week in terms of how he handles things, I think it’s been really, really clear to me that what he’s doing is in the best interests of Canadian farmers,” she said.
