MarketsFarm — Canadian farmers are in the early stages of planting the country’s next chickpea crop, with market conditions firm for the time being, ahead of new-crop harvests in other countries.
“The market is firm, it’s not going up or down,” said Jake Hansen of Mid-West Grain at Moose Jaw, Sask., noting there was not much buying or selling going on right now. He expected the rangebound trend would continue until the there was a better sense of production in Russia and Turkey.
Both countries are major chickpea growers, with harvests that come off before Canada’s. Turkey typically produces a good-quality chickpea crop, while Russia’s quality can be more hit-or-miss.
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India is also a major world player in the world chickpea market, and anecdotal reports point to its recently harvested crop having good yields, but not the best quality, according to Hansen.
From a market perspective on the sell side, buyers are waiting to now how many acres went in the ground in Turkey, and what the potential quality is, said Hansen. The country grew an estimated 580,000 tonnes of chickpeas in 2022, according to government data.
Farmers in the U.S. intend to plant 340,500 acres of chickpeas this year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. That would be down slightly from the 353,100 acres seeded the previous year, when the country grew 186,000 tonnes of chickpeas.
Hansen noted chickpeas seeded in the U.S. generally end up in good shape, while Canada has more risk of frost. Early signs point to a good Canadian crop, but actual yields and quality will depend on weather through the growing season and at harvest.
Planted chickpea area in Canada is forecast at 260,200 acres by Statistics Canada, which would be up 11 per cent on the year, but still below the five-year average (2018-2022) of 318,000 acres. Average yields would see production of around 162,000 tonnes.
Most of Canada’s chickpeas are grown in Saskatchewan, where 25 per cent of intended acres were seeded as of Monday, according to the latest provincial crop report.
— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.
