Saskatchewan lentil growers might want to change their focus to either a new variety or a new market.
The president of Saskcan Pulse Trading told growers at a Regina meeting last week that while they are among the leading producers of green lentils, the world really wants red ones.
“Eighty percent of our production is green,” said Murad Al-Katib. “Eighty percent of the world consumption is red.”
Al-Katib added that growers should remember the 300 million consumers in the United States and Canada who could eat more pulses.
Read Also
Russian pulse trouble reports denied
Russia’s pulse crop will be larger than last year, which won’t help prices rally from their doldrums.
He said shipping a container from Regina to Dubai in the Persian Gulf takes 52 days. It’s nine or 10 days from India and five or six from Turkey.
Turkey to Chicago, on the other hand, would take about a month while a Regina shipment would only take three or four days.
“This has to be a focus,” he said of the North American market.
Canada is the largest green lentil exporter in the world. The largest importers Ñ Sri Lanka, Egypt, India and Pakistan Ñ all buy red.
Al-Katib said markets like this, where lentils are the staple protein, are “must-have” markets.
“It’s not about production,” he reminded producers. “It’s about the consumer.”
He said Canadian farmers are set on growing green lentils yet the market is finite and overproduction will cause prices to crash.
New varieties of reds, like Redberry, might encourage them to think differently.
Yield advantages of between 25 and 40 percent, no colour problems and better disease resistance should all add up to more seeded acreage. He predicted a 15 percent increase this coming crop year.
“If we continue to do our job as a splitter, that figure within 10 years should be one million acres of red lentils. That’s a pretty bold growth.
“The world can absorb significant additional production from Canada without tanking the price. There is no other class of lentils we could say that about.”
There are challenges marketing Canadian lentils, however.
At recent meetings with major importers in Cairo and Dubai, Al-Katib said he heard that if buyers had a choice they would take Turkish, Australian, Indian or Syrian lentils first, because the moisture content is lower and more uniform, making the crop easier to mill.
Canadian Grain Commission standards say lentils should be 14 percent moisture or less. In hotter climates, the maximum is more like 12 percent.
Al-Katib his company’s milling process can accommodate lentils up to about 13 percent moisture but it is a struggle to deal with wide variability within the crop. It’s not like blending wheat.
“There is not a miller in the world that can mill a lentil at 14 percent,” he said. “We pay a premium for grain that is below 121Ú2 percent moisture.”
But he also said growers have to leave some of those worries to Saskcan.
“It’s our job … to make sure we can mill Canadian red lentils effectively,” he said.
