Supply Outlook and Carry-Over Stocks
It’s far too early to make solid predictions about the size of 2026 crops. Seeded area could have changed since StatsCan’s early forecasts. And of course, yields prior to planting are a complete unknown. At this stage in our 2026/27 production outlooks, we use an average yield as that would have the highest odds. Suffice to say, predictions in May about crop size are tentative at best.
While the upcoming crop forecasts are a bit “foggy”, one part of next year’s supply situation is a bit clearer. With the 2025/26 marketing year three-quarters complete, we’re getting a better idea of the tonnes that will be left at the end of the year and carried over into 2026/27. One thing that’s very apparent this year is that the situation is quite different for the individual classes within each pulse crop. Supplies of green lentils and green peas are very different than red lentils and yellow peas.
Overall, pea supplies at the end of 2025/26 will be quite comfortable, somewhere over 700,000 tonnes. That said, the good news is that we’ve trimmed this estimate a few times as export prospects improved, especially after China dropped its tariffs. On the surface, ending stocks of yellow peas look a lot larger than green peas as the absolute number of tonnes is almost twice as large.
The more important measure is the stocks/use (S/U) ratio, which looks at the number of tonnes left over, as a percent of usage (exports, feed, processing and seed). For yellow peas, the ending stocks of 470,000 tonnes represent only 15% of usage, not far off from the last few years. Even though green pea ending stocks are smaller at 250,000 tonnes, that works out to more than 40% of usage. For the 2026/27 outlook, this means the yellow pea carryover isn’t nearly as heavy, while the green pea market will be facing a relatively larger supply cushion.
It’s a similar situation for the Canadian lentil market, with very large supplies expected at the end of 2025/26. Exports have been strong so far this year, but not enough to match the increase in the record 2025 crop. There is a sizable difference between ending stocks for red and green lentils. Typically, red lentil stocks are much larger than greens but in 2025/26, that situation flipped around. Our forecast is that July 31 red lentil stocks will be 630,000 tonnes, with a stocks/use ratio of 35-40%. The green lentil crop in 2025 was more than double last year and even with solid exports, 850,000 tonnes will be left at the end of the year. The stocks/use ratio close to 100% means that there will almost be enough green lentils carried over to meet all of next year’s demand. That’s very burdensome and means that drawing down those supplies will take some time.
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