There was an interesting webinar Monday involving two pulse crop producers from Canada and two from the United States.
For many years, pulse crop buyers mostly focused on quality and appearance while growers were interested in high yields.
Now with pulse protein being added to a wide variety of food products for health benefits, growers are looking to get paid for that protein.
"Now our breeding teams are developing varieties that have higher protein, more consistent protein, because that's what the market is demanding," said Tim McGreevy, Chief Executive Officer of U.S. Pulses. "And so delivering a high quality, a consistent protein product from a pulse crop is becoming more and more important and we're seeing that reflected in protein premiums in the marketplace."
Shawn Dyrland, who farms near Kyle and is a Saskatchewan Pulse Growers director, notes that modern farms are production systems and each crop choice is based on economics.
"It has to compete with other crops in that rotation, so it doesn't just have to compete with a pea that might be going for animal feed or something else. The ROI has to be there against other crops as well, so that's something that we have to consider." he said.
Shane Strydhorst, the Chair of Alberta Pulse Growers and farms at Neerlandia, located about an hour and a half northwest of Edmonton, says if there is a demand for protein then producers are willing to switch from one variety to another.
"Different varieties will have different protein characteristics and if we see a signal in the marketplace that says, yes, we want to pay extra for protein, then farmers will be more willing to make a shift from one variety or crop type to another to catch that. But yeah, generally, I would say yield is always going to be king if it's a trade-off between the two, and if there isn't a premium attached.” Strydhorst said.
The other American who participated in the webinar is Cordel Huebsch, a Minnesota farmer and a director with the Northharvest Bean Growers Association.
Huebsch and McGreevy talked about the impact politics is having on American farmer's bottom lines.
China has stopped buying U.S. soybeans as the two global economic powers are embroiled in a tariff war. U.S. attacks on Colombian ships allegedly carrying drugs could impact corn purchases from the South American country which is a top five customer.
Now, the latest is U.S. President Donald Trump saying there will be more imports of beef from Argentina to cap rising meat prices in the supermarket.
"We're at all time lows. Every single class of commodity in this country has been decimated," Huebsch said. "The most frustrating thing for me is all the time and energy that I have put and my predecessors have put into building and developing these relationships globally to get these incredible products around the globe have just been wiped out and I don't see the logic in it and it's the most frustrating thing in the whole wide world to watch happen in front of our eyes."
He adds U.S. government food aid programs have been cut which also impact farmers.
"Exports is one thing and that's gone for us right now. But even on the domestic food restructuring, when we could usually count on our government to help us when we have classes of product that are oversupplied that can get bought into government programs and distributed to our people, even those have been decimated and so I don't have anything good to say about it. It's the most frustrating thing I've ever seen in my life and hopefully things change soon."
McGreevy says many U.S. farmers are in what he calls a dark mood.
"At least you've got folks in Canada have a government you can complain to right now. Ours is currently shut down, which is kind of sad, and we hope that they reopen quickly," he said. "I mean, this is a real frustrating time on so many fronts because the policy from our government is really driving markets. It's driving regulations as well and there's a lot of question marks, and our government is shut down right now. So it's an interesting time to be in the agriculture community right now when every single commodity is really at rock bottom and doesn't look good for the future here either unless things really turn around."
However, McGreevy remains bullish on pulses in the long-term because they are a cheap source of protein in a world where animal protein prices are rising.
The webinar was organized by Pulse Canada and the Good Food Institute.
(with files from Neil Billinger, CJWW)
