One year ago, Marlene Boersch warned Saskatchewan pea, lentil and chickpea growers they would likely be facing increased competition from subsidized pulses out of the United States.
Fast forward to Pulse Days 2007 and Boersch has completely changed her tune.
“I don’t think that will necessarily be the truth anymore,” she told growers attending the market outlook session of the conference.
Boersch, a Winnipeg consultant who used to be a pulse crop trader, said the biofuels industry has changed everything.
Soaring demand for U.S. corn and soybeans to fuel the booming ethanol and biodiesel sector has mitigated the impact of pulse crops being included under the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill.
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“We don’t think the loan program on pulses is really a major threat (anymore),” said Boersch.
Her comments are backed up by a Dec. 14 report issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, showing that lentil acreage declined in 2006 for the first time since 2001.
That trend is expected to continue in 2007 and to spread to peas.
“At this time, it appears that acreage planted to dry edible peas and lentils could each decline about a tenth in 2007,” stated the report.
Despite expectations of rising prices for both crops in the coming months, the potential returns for competitive crops such as wheat and corn will be too strong for growers to ignore, said the USDA analysts.
Garth Patterson, executive director of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, has been preaching about the looming U.S. threat for years. But he acknowledged that fire has at least temporarily been doused.
He expects U.S. lentil acreage to take the biggest hit because those growers were hit hard by drought in 2007, with production declining 36 percent from 2005 levels.
