Lentils on display at a grocery store in Mumbai. India is the largest buyer of pulses in the world and Prairie producers supply half of those imports, generating $1.5 billion in sales for farmers here.

Pulse sector roiled by India’s fumigation edict

Science says our pulses are safe — but industry officials are preparing a Plan B if India won’t back down

Reading Time: 4 minutes The clock is ticking on whether Indian officials will reverse an edict requiring Canadian pulse shipments to be fumigated at the port of origin rather than at their destination. Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and a delegation from Pulse Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency were in India at the beginning of March to […] Read more

What will make you money this year?

What will make you money this year?

Reading Time: < 1 minute AgriProfit$ Cropping Alternatives has been updated for 2017. The crop-budgeting tool allows producers to project costs, margins and break-even yields for potential cropping choices. The data is presented by soil zones, with a mix of cereals, oilseeds, pulses and forage crops for each zone. Crop budgets include a projection of individual itemized variable costs as […] Read more


Several jurisdictions in Canada have imposed a ban on disposal of food scraps as garbage, including Metro Vancouver, which required food waste to be recycled starting in 2015. (Vancouver.ca)

Ontario waste plan to include ban on food waste disposal

Ontario’s new strategy for a “waste-free” province includes a proposal to ban food waste from disposal, instead finding “creative strategies” to recycle it. The province on Wednesday announced its new “Strategy for a Waste-Free Ontario: Building the Circular Economy,” which calls for industries to divert more of the waste they produce away from landfills, and […] Read more

Crop fact sheets available

Crop fact sheets available

Reading Time: < 1 minute Three crop varietal fact sheets are now available. The Varieties of Cereal and Oilseed Crops for Alberta 2017 that provides agronomic characteristics and disease-resistance information are provided for varieties of wheat, barley, oat, rye, triticale, flax and canola. Varieties of Pulse Crops for Alberta provides information on pulse variety performance for varieties of field pea, […] Read more



A meal in a bowl is a hot trend for 2017, as is vegetarian cuisine.

Root vegetables are hot and pulses continue to find favour

If vegetarian cuisine isn’t your thing, there’s another trend you will like — chocolate for breakfast

Reading Time: 2 minutes Grain bowls for breakfast; vegetables as restaurant entrees; and lots more pasta and pulses are among the predicted food trends for the coming year. “CBC food writer Julie Van Rosendaal believes that grain bowls for breakfast are returning,” said Rosalie Cunningham, a researcher with Alberta Agriculture. “Recent years have seen an increase in one-bowl meals […] Read more


(Lightlife.com)

Maple Leaf to buy U.S. veggie dog, burger maker

Canadian meat packer Maple Leaf Foods is buying space on the non-meat side of the deli section with a deal for U.S. processor Lightlife Foods. Toronto-based Maple Leaf announced Tuesday it would pay US$140 million for Lightlife, which makes vegetarian burgers, hot dogs, sausage, deli cuts, jerky and other meatless protein products at Turners Falls, […] Read more

Blair Roth (centre) with Alberta Pulse Growers past chair Allison Ammeter and Richard Pepneck, chair of the advisory board for Zone 1, which nominated Roth for the Alberta Pulse Industry Innovator Award.

Blair Roth wins pulse innovator award

Reading Time: < 1 minute Blair Roth is the winner of the third annual Alberta Pulse Industry Innovator Award. While working at Alberta Agriculture in the 1980s, Roth ran field-scale demonstrations for early soybean, lupin, fababean, chickpea, bean, pea and lentil crops. He helped establish the Alberta Pulse Growers Association and its transition to the Alberta Pulse Growers Commission in […] Read more