MarketsFarm –– The Canadian pulse harvest appears to be making a comeback after production struggled with a historic drought in Western Canada last year.
Statistics Canada (StatCan) released its July satellite image-based principal field crop production estimates on Monday, projecting sharp increases in production for most of Canada’s crops, including pulses.
Canada’s dry pea harvest is anticipated to see a major improvement this year compared to 2021. Production for the 2022-23 marketing year is estimated to rise by 59.9 per cent to 3.61 million tonnes, slightly above pre-report trade estimates which ranged from 3.4 to 3.45 million. In Saskatchewan, pea production jumped 61.4 per cent to 1.81 million, while Alberta saw a 72.4 per cent rise to 1.54 million.
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Despite being closer to typical levels, pea production is still lower than the 4.59 million tonnes harvested in 2020. Excluding last year, the Canadian pea crop will be under four million tonnes for the first time since 2018.
Meanwhile, the 2022 lentil crop will nearly double the previous year’s. StatCan projected 2.91 million tonnes to be harvested with 2.43 million (83.5 per cent) coming from Saskatchewan. This year’s figure represents an 80.9 per cent rise in lentil production compared to 2021 and higher than pre-report trade estimates which pegged the crop at between 2.4 to 2.8 million.
Unlike most Canadian crops which fell behind 2020 levels, this year’s lentil production will be at a multi-year high with its second-largest harvest on record only behind the 3.19 million tonnes in 2016.
Jon Driedger, a Winnipeg-based trader and vice-president of Leftfield Commodity Research, said his company’s estimates for peas and lentils mostly came through. However, he is cautious about StatCan’s estimate for the latter.
“We were a shade lower on the lentils than what StatCan had,” he said. “As we are getting some harvest results for lentils, you hear comments that (yields) are maybe a little disappointing. So it’s possible (StatCan’s) model-based approach slightly overestimates the lentils.
“(Pulses) were largely in line with what we were thinking coming in and we’ll wait for actual harvest results coming off the fields to see if we’ll need to recalibrate.”
While StatCan is scheduled to issue its next production report on Sept. 14, there will likely only be slight changes. The federal agency will release its next survey-based crop report in December.
Table: Pulse production estimates for 2022-23 from Statistics Canada. Production in thousands of tonnes; yield in kg/ha; area harvested in thousands of hectares.
| Harvested. . | Average. . | Production, . | Production, | |
| area | yield | July 2022-23 | 2021-22 final | |
| Edible beans. . | 113.0 | 2,446 | 276.3 | 385.9 |
| Chickpeas | 69.8 | 1,917 | 133.8 | 76.2 |
| Faba beans | n/a | n/a | n/a | 72.9 |
| Lentils | 1,723.7 | 1,686 | 2,906.2 | 1,606.4 |
| Dry peas | 1,328.3 | 2,718 | 3,610.1 | 2,257.8 |
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