Canadian farmers fearing an explosion in American pulse acres can rest
easy, at least for this crop year.
Despite peas, lentils and chickpeas being included in the new United
States farm bill, market analysts are forecasting American pulse
acreage will remain about the same as last year. One crop watcher is
even forecasting a slight drop in U.S. pulse plantings to 555,000 acres
from 560,500 in 2001-02.
In his presentation at a recent international pulse trade convention,
Read Also
Supreme Court gives thumbs-up emoji case the thumbs down
Saskatchewan farmer wanted to appeal the court decision that a thumbs-up emoji served as a signature to a grain delivery contract.
Agricore United market analyst Dirk Boettcher said he expects U.S.
lentil plantings to stay about the same at 205,000 acres, chickpeas to
fall 46 percent to 80,000 acres and peas to rise 27 percent to 270,000
acres.
The executive director of the U.S.A. Dry Pea and Lentil Council has
similar thoughts. Tim McGreevy estimates lentil acreage will be flat,
peas will be up about 10 percent and chickpeas will fall 40 percent.
He will check that best guess against an official survey of the group’s
members to be released at the end of June, but he doesn’t expect to see
anything too alarming.
“I don’t think our acreage is going to increase substantially in this
crop year at all,” said McGreevy, adding that Canadian farmers are
overly concerned about the effect of pulses being included in the new
U.S. farm bill.
The legislation establishes loan deficiency payments for peas, lentils
and small chickpeas – setting a national floor price for those three
crops for the first time in U.S. history.
At current exchange rates, those floor prices would work out to $5.94
per bushel for peas, 18.69 cents per pound for lentils and 11.84 cents
per lb. for small chickpeas in 2002 and 2003.
The rates drop slightly in the final four years of the legislation.
Saskatchewan Pulse Growers executive director Garth Patterson said news
about pulses being included in the legislation came a little too late
for most American growers to change their seeding plans.
Even if they wanted to, they probably couldn’t have found enough seed.
Deteriorating prices also factored into their decision to continue
pulse acres at 2001 levels, said Patterson.
The big question is whether in a few years time they will change their
acres from wheat to pulses based on support prices. Pulse Canada has
asked the Canadian government to quantify that risk.
“I know that Tim (McGreevy) is downplaying it a bit – that it won’t
have a big impact. We’ve been saying, ‘Well, it sure could, especially
in lentils’, “said Patterson.
His gut feeling is that American farmers are going to want to grow far
more lentils in coming years because support prices are higher than
what markets have been paying. The Americans are guaranteeing growers a
price that is “almost a large green price,” which is a lucrative price
for small greens and reds.
“That’s the one that appears to be quite distorted from the current
market situation,” said Patterson.
McGreevy said even if support prices encourage more U.S. pulse acres in
the years to come, there will be a market for that production. He said
Canadian growers increased pulse acreage by as much as two million
acres one year and still managed to sell the crop.
“You have found a home for it,” said McGreevy. “We feel that we can do
the same.”
Patterson said there may be a market for a larger North American pulse
crop, but whether it will be at prices Canadian growers find reasonable
is another story.
He encourages the federal government to offset some of the negative
effects of the U.S. farm bill by developing better risk management
programs for farmers and by putting more money into the development of
pulse varieties with better agronomics and new end uses.
