Field pea exports are materializing slower than experts had predicted.
Analysts were forecasting a 33 percent drop in export volumes from last year, but preliminary numbers indicate it could be worse than that.
Peas shipped out of Vancouver and Thunder Bay, Ont., in August and September are down a combined 52 percent from the first two months of the previous marketing year. Exports from the two ports have fallen to 129,770 tonnes from 270,138 tonnes the previous year.
Officials at the Port of Churchill on Hudson Bay are projecting a 50 percent decline in their pea tonnage for the entire year, compared to last year’s record volumes of about 150,000 tonnes.
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It’s not the only crop where exports are dragging. Production problems have reduced the amount of all grains and oilseeds available for export, and markets have been lethargic. However, pea movement has been particularly slow.
“People are hanging onto their peas and not delivering and that’s causing a problem because there’s only so much (traders) can bid based on what the world market is prepared to accept,” said Francois Catellier, executive director of the Canadian Special Crops Association.
“You might think that because we’ve got a decrease in production in Canada it’s going to affect the world markets but it doesn’t. We’re a big player in some of these crops but there’s other players out there as well.”
Garth Patterson, executive director of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers Association, said he wouldn’t put too much faith in two months of data. He said growers were holding onto their crops because prices and supplies were low. But that’s changing.
“Prices have moved to the point now where growers will start feeding the market because prices are reasonable.”
Steve Foster, special crops trader with Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, said part of the problem is that yields are down but the quality of the pea crop is generally good. Producers have quality peas, but not a lot of them, so they are expecting a good price for their crop.
That is driving up the Canadian price for both human consumption and feed peas, and is scaring away feed pea buyers from the European Union.
“The feed pea market, which normally goes out of Thunder Bay and Churchill, is paying for that right now,” Foster said.
Pea shipments to Western Europe approached one million tonnes last year. Traders are already forecasting volumes as low as 500,000 tonnes for the current marketing year, he said.
Foster thinks farmers have outsmarted traders so far this year by holding onto their crop and strategically picking points where they want to sell.
“Traditionally, peas were his cash crop, right off the combine. This year he hasn’t done that. He’s held the peas and he’s moved a bit of board grains.”
But Foster thinks farmers may have been too smart for their own good.
“They could end up waiting for a high price and wait themselves out of a market.”
Patterson said traders could have been selling more feed peas to Europe if they paid more attention to the quality demands of European buyers.
“If the trader insists on continuing to ship high levels of foreign material in feed peas, then they’re going to find there’s limited markets.”
