Made in Saskatchewan pinto beans could become the featured entrée on Mexican dinner plates in future years through an export initiative announced in Saskatoon July 21.
Under the seven-year agreement, Walker Seeds Ltd. and Keg Agro Ltd. are licensed to produce, process and market slow-darkening pinto beans developed by the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre.
That includes variety 1533-15, now in its first year of pedigreed seed production.
Colour and plumpness in beans are important to Mexicans, said Gildardo Silva, Walker Seeds’ sales manager for Latin America and Europe.
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Bean prices have been slumping and the outlook is for more of the same.
“If you’ve got a white bean and a plump bean, you’re way ahead of the game,” he said.
Silva said beans and lentils generally oxidize quickly in the warm climate and often unrefrigerated warehouses of Mexico, but lighter coloured beans store well and hold their value longer.
He wants to develop a Saskatchewan brand name for the unique and distinct attributes of the beans, developed by pulse researcher Bert Vandenberg, similar to the awareness of the special attributes of beans produced in southern Alberta and Colorado.
Mexico consumes one million tonnes of beans annually, importing about 100,000 tonnes of mainly yellow, pinto and black beans. The United States consumes 450,000 tonnes of pinto beans alone, he said.
Confident of markets for the Saskatchewan beans, Silva and Vandenberg first travelled to Mexico to find out in detail what they wanted.
“You have to go to the end user, know what they want, bring it back to the lab and the fields,” Silva said.
“Then they are winners when you start. There’s no need to push them because people will want them.”
Dean Corbett, chair of the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, said the Saskatchewan beans will be kept separate from other pinto beans varieties to preserve their identity at all stages from production to processing, marketing and to the end user.
“It’s unique in Canada and could give us a distinct market advantage,” he said.
Under the agreement, Walker Seeds will contract the production of beans and promote and market them to customers.
Keg Agro will process the beans, with Big Dog Farms of Oxbow, Sask., and Willner Agri Ltd. of Davidson, Sask., handling seed multiplication.
Pulse crop development will get a further boost in Saskatchewan this fall when an expanded pulse crop research lab opens at the university.
There are currently six million acres of pulse crops grown in Canada, with five million of them in Saskatchewan.
