Taking the pulse of pulses on World Pulses Day

In case you’re wondering, chickpeas, lentils, dry beans and peas are all part of the pulse family and today we salute them. Pulses are a healthy food option and beans are renowned as the musical fruit.

Canadian farmers grow a lot of pulses, with dry field peas and lentils being the largest crop.

The biggest farms of this type and most pulse farmers are located in Saskatchewan and Alberta, where the soil and climate are ideal for growing the crop.

However, the summer of 2021 was the driest in 20 years on the Prairies, and one of the hardest for pulse farmers. Production of dry field peas (-51%), Canada’s largest pulse crop, declined by half from a year earlier, while lentil production fell 44%. Although there are relatively few chickpea farmers in Canada, they were the hardest hit, with production down by almost two-thirds (-64%) from a year earlier.

Farmers reported harvesting about one-fifth fewer dry beans (-21%) from a year earlier, the smallest decline among Canada’s major pulse crops. One reason for the smaller decline in dry beans is that nearly one-third of the crop, on average, is harvested in Ontario, where weather conditions were good in 2021. 

Prior to the 2021 drought, Canada’s smallest pulse crops were the fastest growing from 2016 to 2020, with chickpea production almost tripling to 214 000 metric tonnes, and faba bean production more than doubling to 125 000 tonnes.

Most of the pulses grown in Canada are destined for overseas markets, with India (29% of exports) being the top destination for lentils and China (94%) for barley in 2021. However, both countries have imposed tariffs or placed restrictions on Canadian imports in recent years and this has led to uncertainty among farmers.

While Canadians are eating more lentils now than they were 10 years earlier, some of the pulses sold in Canada in a given year are also destined to be fed to cows, pigs or other livestock raised on farms domestically and overseas.

Although 2021 was among the hardest for pulse farmers in recent years, there is a silver lining. Prices are up for lentils (+30%), dry peas (+34%) and dry beans (+6%) from a year earlier and, as the saying goes, there’s always next year…

We will announce the final tally of receipts for the 2021 pulse year on May 25, 2022. This spring, pulse farmers will tell us what their crop plans are for the coming year in the principal field crop areas, March 2022 survey.