Pulse weekly outlook: More acres sought for 2020

MarketsFarm — Planting intentions for red and green lentils and other pulses have been looking good for 2020 — but that might change somewhat because prices have slipped a little, said Marcos Mosnaim of Globeways Canada in Mississauga.

Discussing pulse crops at a farm show last month in Saskatoon, Mosnaim said he got the strong impression farmers were going to seed more lentils, peas and canary seed in 2020.

However, he said, with prices easing, those farmers might alter their planting intentions.

Red lentils were 24 cents/lb. in January, but have declined by between 1.5 and two cents. Green lentils lost a penny and peas became softer, he said.

Nevertheless Mosnaim remained optimistic for 2020.

“Canary seed is at a high price. Green lentils are still profitable and the same for red lentils. And those are cheap and easy crops to grow,” he said.

Prairie Ag Hotwire cited green peas at $10.18-$11.90 per bushel delivered as of Tuesday. Yellow peas were at $6.10-$7.04 per bushel and canary seed was 27-30 cents/lb.

In 2019 Canadian farmers produced almost 2.17 million tonnes of lentils along with more than 4.2 million tonnes of dry peas, according to data from Statistics Canada

Canary seed production topped 124,700 tonnes in 2019 and there were 316,800 tonnes of dry beans.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.