Pulse Market Insight #263

Nov 13, 2024

First Quarter Review

How time flies! According to the grain shipping calendar from the Canadian Grain Commission, we are now through the first quarter of 2024/25. With the weekly CGC data for week 13, the first three months of this marketing year, we can get a bit of a feel for how 2024/25 is progressing.

Before we dive into the numbers, there are a few things to note. Probably the most important is that movement of pulses, especially peas, tends to be heavier in the first quarter due to strong off-the-combine deliveries and large new-crop sales that need to be filled. Also, in the CGC data, exports by container are not reported and for peas and lentils, this typically accounts for roughly 30% and 40% of total exports, respectively. The CGC data also doesn’t include movement through unlicensed elevators or crops trucked by farmers directly into the US.

When we look at the CGC data, the pace of farmer deliveries is the first “leading indicator” of exports, as grain companies draw in crops to keep the pipeline supplied. The next indicator is shipments from country elevators, which tell us how many tonnes are being moved to export positions, as well as other destinations. Then finally, we see the export numbers, which are only those crops moved in bulk vessels. For pulses, this generally means yellow peas and red lentils.

It’s been a very good start to the year for Canadian pea movement. Farmers have already delivered 1.37 mln tonnes of peas, well above average. Through the first quarter, 1.05 mln tonnes of bulk exports have happened, well above last year at 718,000 tonnes and the 5-year average of 818,000 tonnes. In fact, this is the strongest start since 2020/21, but it also means the pace will need to slow later in 2024/25. Unfortunately, the CGC weekly data doesn’t provide destinations but we know from StatsCan export data for August and September that (no surprise), India and China are the two dominant destinations for peas.

When it comes to lentils, the first quarter of 2024/25 started off very slowly, but the pace has started to pick up. Farmer deliveries have reached 740,000 tonnes, roughly 100,000 tonnes more than the 5-year average. Bulk exports were trailing for most of the first quarter but recently moved ahead of both last year and the 5-year average pace. According to StatsCan’s export data for August and September, India is the largest destination so far, followed by Türkiye. Heavy movement is expected to continue for the next few weeks at least, as farmer deliveries (the leading indicator) are continuing to run well above average recently.

Because chickpeas and dry beans aren’t exported in bulk vessel shipments, the CGC data doesn’t provide much data for those crops. According to StatsCan’s export data for August and September, 20,000 tonnes of chickpeas have been exported so far, slightly behind average and well below last year. Keep in mind, this wouldn’t have included much, if any, new-crop chickpea supplies, which are much larger than last year.

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”