The Western Standards Committee has also recommended grade schedules for Desi and Kabuli chickpeas. The industry currently trades chickpeas on samples.
Garth Patterson of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers said the new standards will ensure growers get a more fair, consistent price, and will give exporters a good market development tool.
Gordon Bacon of Pulse Canada said international buyers want to know what they’re getting from Canada, a new supplier in the chickpea trade. The standards will be a good reference point for negotiating price, he said.
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But Brian Clancey of Stat Publishing said some international buyers are concerned because they have bought chickpeas with looser specifications that would now be deemed substandard.
Adjustment period
Clancey said color requirements in the new grade are the same as what traders have been using. But tolerances for damage are stricter than some contracts have permitted. He believes the new standard will create some anxiety as buyers and sellers get used to it.
Other grade recommendations made by the Western Standards Committee include:
- Tightening tolerance for wheat midge damage to five percent from eight percent in No. 2 red spring wheat, to 10 percent from 25 percent in No. 3 red spring wheat, to two percent from eight percent in No. 1 extra strong wheat, and to five percent from 25 percent in No. 2 extra strong wheat.
- Matching primary and export grade standards for level of maturity, frost damage, ergot and heated.
- Using new moisture test conversion charts for red spring wheat.
- Raising the minimum test weight for No. 1 and No. 2 general purpose barley, eliminating the grade of Extra No. 1 Canada western barley at the end of this crop year.
The committee also agreed to discuss a proposal at its spring meeting next year that would narrow the gap between primary and export tolerance for foreign material and other wheat in all classes of wheat.
