Competition Between Crop Prices: How This Will Affect Supply + Demand

From Saskatchewan Pulse Growers October Newsletter

By Brian Clancy, StatPublishing.

Today's bids for pulses look really good when you compare them to pnces over the past quarter century,when fanners received less money 75% of the time or more.

But everything changes if you only look at grower bids since 2007. Vvhile peas have joined canola and wheal In the penthouse suite, lentils and chickpeas are threatening to move into the basement. not far from the laundry room.

From the looks of things, farmers are taking advantage of markets for peas,grains and oilseeds. During the first six. weeks of the current marketing year, they sold more of these crops than any point in the past decade. Total deliveries came to 5.2 million tannes, including 562,900 tannes of peas. The previous high was in 2006. when 4.72 million tonnes of all grains were sold, including 446,400 tonnes of peas.

By contrast traders wondered why farmers were not as interested in lentil and chickpea markets. It is hard to say if people are so busy that lentil and chickpea volume seems low by comparison, or if farmers were actually binning more of those crops than usual. The most reliable indicator is exports but August export data will not be available until October and September export data will not be available until November.

Judging: from the way the 2011/12 marketing year wrapped up, red lentil movement has probably been good, though green lentil movement might be lower than normal. However, the real concem is not what happens in August and September as much as what will happen through the third week in November.

Click the following link to find the rest of the article on the SaskPulse website.