LLOYDMINSTER, Sask. – Prairie pulse production has received an $8.3 million push from the federal government.
“It’s very exciting news,” pulse grower Gordon Tuck from Vegreville, Alta., said during a funding announcement earlier this month.
He said pulses are a healthful food and a good alternative for farmers. As a result, any effort to encourage farmers to grow pulses and consumers to eat them is welcome news.
“Knowledge and price” keep farmers from growing more acres, he said, which is why he welcomed new funding aimed at supporting research, identifying new varieties, building markets and promoting health benefits.
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Harold Haugen, vice-president of Alberta Pulse Growers, said the financial boost is crucial to the industry.
“It’s absolutely necessary. Without this, the industry would collapse. This will keep the industry rolling forward in uncertain times.”
Haugen recently returned from a trade mission to China, where Canadian pulse officials met Chinese research scientists to encourage more use of pulses.
“Hopefully, China will start using pulse flour in some of their products,” Haugen said.
Sherry Strydhorst, executive director of Alberta Pulse Growers, said the funding will fill in the gaps.
The money will be used to help scientists find more disease resistant varieties and more weed control options. It will also be used to prove the health benefits of pulses.
“We need to see the health benefits and we need the scientific research to back it up,” Strydhorst said.
Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said the money will help the growing export industry, which sold $2 billion worth of pulse crops overseas last year.
“This will open new markets and keep the economy firing on all eight cylinders,” Ritz said.
Carl Potts, director of market development with Pulse Canada, said the money would help increase market access and allow the industry to be more proactive in developing new markets.
It will allow the pulse industry to develop country specific market access programs and notify processors and exports of changes in rules and regulations, he added.
Bob Nelson of Great Western Grain in Lloydminster, where the announcement was made, said he welcomed the funding as a processor and marketer of pulses.
His farm has exported pulses for 26 years but has concentrated on splitting peas and chickpeas for export in the past seven years.
