(Lentils.ca)

Pulse weekly outlook: Lentil prices seen as too high, sales stalling

'Destination markets are not in desperation mode'

MarketsFarm — Prices for pulses, such as lentils for example, have been approaching the point where they are good for growers but getting too expensive for the destination markets, according to Marcos Mosnaim of Mercaris Commodities. “It’s a kind of an interesting scenario, where you see farmers not selling and prices to farmers keep going […] Read more



Faba Canada acquires Alberta processing facility

Faba Canada acquires Alberta processing facility

Company to produce protein concentrate, aims to spark faba acreage boom

Reading Time: < 1 minute The owner of Faba Canada has acquired a former field pea-processing plant at Legal and will open Alberta’s first fababean fractionation facility. The plant will allow his company, based in Melfort, Sask. to demonstrate it can successfully produce high-protein concentrate, company president Brad Goudy told Saskatchewan radio station CJVR. Goudy has been a longtime promoter […] Read more

Fractionation is a process that separates a pulse, grain or oilseed into protein, starch and fibre. But there are also steps before and after that process that are often done by contract, or toll, processors. This slide shows some of the steps before fractionation can occur. It was part of a presentation by anCeres Processing Solutions for a series of ‘Fractionation 101’ workshops put on by the Plant Protein Alliance of Alberta prior to the pandemic.

Study finds major gap in Alberta’s valued-added strategy

A supporting cast of contract processors key to developing plant protein-processing sector

Reading Time: 3 minutes A lack of fractionation plants isn’t the only thing holding back development of a plant protein-processing sector in Alberta. Like fractionation, the province is falling behind on toll processors, companies that provide specialty processing and manufacturing for other companies. “We need all that toll processing in Alberta in order to get the secondary and tertiary […] Read more


People queue up outside a public supermarket’s doors in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, in April 2015. (iStock/Getty Images)

World Food Programme starts distributing food in Venezuela

Reuters — The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said Wednesday it had begun distributing school meals to children in Venezuela, where some seven million people require humanitarian assistance after years of economic collapse in the once-prosperous OPEC nation. The WFP’s first take-home rations were distributed for children under six years old at some 277 schools […] Read more

File photo of a pea crop south of Ethelton, Sask. on Aug. 1, 2019. (Dave Bedard photo)

Pulse weekly outlook: Saskatchewan crops fight off record heat

MarketsFarm — The “heat dome” which enveloped Western Canada last week delivered a blow to Saskatchewan’s pulse crops. Thirty-four temperature records were shattered on Friday, including those at Regina, Prince Albert, Swift Current, Weyburn and Yorkton. Saskatoon and Lucky Lake, northeast of Swift Current, were the province’s hot spots that day at 40 C. Nine […] Read more



(Peggy Greb photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Pulse weekly outlook: Manitoba dry beans in good shape

MarketsFarm — Despite temperatures ranging from near-freezing lows to sweltering highs and receiving little precipitation, Manitoba’s dry edible bean crop has weathered the conditions well, according to the province’s pulse specialist. “We’ve had some interesting weather over the last week to two weeks,” Dennis Lange, pulse specialist for Manitoba Agriculture at Altona, said, referring to […] Read more



You may have only got up close and personal to fababeans at a field day (such as Canolapalooza in Lacombe in 2019) but the pulse may soon be more widely grown — especially if aphanomyces limits the ability to grow peas and lentils every three or four years.

What can you grow if root rot kicks out peas and lentils?

You may need an eight-year break between those crops, but there are some other pulses to consider

Reading Time: 5 minutes With aphanomyces threatening peas and lentils, what can producers do to keep pulses in the rotation? Pulse growers are being urged to go up to eight years between plantings of either peas or lentils, which dominate pulse acres in the province. “Our susceptible crops are pea and lentil and, to a lesser extent, dry bean. […] Read more