Lentils and peas will be among those pulse crops facing challenges not only in January, but also for the rest of the 2025/26 marketing year and possibly beyond that, said Marlene Boersch of Mercantile Consulting Venture Inc. in Winnipeg.
Tariffs were a major influence on Canadian yellow pea prices in 2025, with levies imposed by China and India. The two countries are Canada’s biggest foreign pulse buyers.
Prices for green and yellow peas have dropped back across the Prairies over the last week. One of the major downward drivers was the Statistics Canada production report released earlier this month, said Levon Sargsyan of Johnston’s Grain in Calgary.
Statistics Canada will release its first survey-based production estimates for the 2025/26 crop year on Dec. 4, with general expectations for upward revisions to most major crops from the model-based estimates in September. However, as StatCan has shown a tendency to underestimate production in its December reports, many analysts expect actual production may be revised upward in subsequent reports.
Australian pulse production is expected to set a record for the second year in a row in 2025/26, with a slight decline in the chickpea crop countered by increased lentil production, said the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARES) in its December crop report.
As trade talks between Canada and India are soon to restart, Pulse Canada said it’s looking for any deal arising out of those talks to be beneficial for Canadian pulse growers.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada made only a handful of alterations for its November report on principal field crops. The only changes AAFC made were with all wheat and durum exports plus domestic use for all wheat and corn in the estimates released on Nov. 24. The report had been initially scheduled for Nov. 19, but AAFC said they chose to delay it until after the United States Department of Agriculture issued its November supply and demand estimates following the U.S. government shutdown.
China and India figured prominently in the September export data issued by the Canadian Grain Commission on Nov. 7. For the most part, the CGC’s numbers highlighted issues with grain, oilseed and pulse exports from licensed facilities to those countries.