Developing new uses, expanding demand and improving market access part of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers strategic plan
Saskatchewan Pulse Growers has a new strategic plan that emphasizes developing alternative crops for the province’s farmers.
“We’re going to increase the level of focus that we have on diversity of crops,” said executive director Carl Potts.
“Fababeans and soybeans is where we’re going to see some more investment.”
Pulse crops account for 14 percent of Saskatchewan’s seeded acreage. The hope is to grow that to 25 percent by having at least one viable pulse crop option for every acre of Saskatchewan farmland.
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Potts said fababeans and soybeans will go a long way towards addressing shortcomings in the northeast and southeast regions of the province.
He believes there could be 500,000 acres of fababeans grown in the province in the next five to seven years. Potts didn’t have an estimate for soybeans but companies like Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer have ambitious plans for the crop.
The association intends to in-crease investment in fababean breeding programs and agronomy research. There will also be money spent on market development and providing marketing information to growers.
For soybeans, the emphasis will be on agronomy research because seed technology companies already have extensive breeding programs. The association has already committed $350,000 to soybean agronomy projects.
Potts said there will also be some funding for exploratory research to determine what could be the next big pulse crop for the province.
“It might be lupins. It might be mung beans. It might be other sorts of pulse crops,” he said.
Potts said it is important to have a long-term outlook for the sector because 20 years ago nobody thought Saskatchewan would be producing half of the world’s red lentils.
Developing new crop options is one of four pillars in the new strategic plan. The other three are unlocking yield potential, expanding demand and improving market access.
A top priority for the yield pillar is to develop additional herbicide tolerant platforms to augment the Clear-field platform.
It is estimated that 80 to 90 percent of red lentil production is Clearfield varieties, which are tolerant to Group 2 herbicides.
Potts said researchers are working on discovering naturally occurring resistance to other herbicides, such as Group 14 herbicides.
There will also be continued funding for building disease resistance into new varieties.
“I think they’ve come a long way in breeding disease resistance into chickpea varieties,” he said.
New chickpea varieties only re-quire two fungicide treatments during the growing season rather than multiple applications.
The focus for the demand pillar will be working with global food companies to expand utilization of pulse-based food ingredients.
“Interestingly, food companies talk to us and they say, ‘You don’t need to sell us on the health and nutrition benefits of pulses. We’re there. But we need to find ways to be able to increase our utilization in food products,’ ” said Potts.
Saskatchewan Pulse Growers will fund technical work on improving the functionality and flavour of pulse-based products and will keep food companies abreast of work going on at the Canadian International Grains Institute and the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre.
- Market access will continue to be a priority because 91 percent of Canada’s yellow peas are exported to three countries — India, China and Bangladesh, while 86 percent of its red lentils are shipped to five countries — India, Egypt, Turkey, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
- Carl Potts said those markets need to remain free of import duties and non-tariff barriers such as trade-restricting maximum residue limits.
- The association will provide funding to Pulse Canada to work on improving market access and on improving the efficiency of Canada’s transportation system.
- Potts said diversifying into the food ingredient business will help Canada reduce its reliance on a few price-sensitive export markets that consume mostly whole or split products.
