Farmers in Canada intend to plant a record amount of land to lentils and dry peas, a combined 9.4 million acres this year, “betting that strong demand from drought-stricken India will soften the blow of low prices for wheat, corn and other field crops,” said the Toronto Globe and Mail. Plantings of lentils and dry peas would rise by 23 percent from 2015’s total, according to data from Statistics Canada. Its figures were based on a survey of growers in March. The agency will update the estimates on June 29.
“It’s all-in on India, no one else in the world can consume those numbers,” David Newman of Commodious Trading told the Globe and Mail. It said acreage devoted to pulses, the crop category that includes dry peas and lentils, has almost doubled since 2013 and that exports were worth a record $3.7 billion in 2015. “Prices for some pulses more than doubled late last season as India placed large orders,” said the newspaper. India, the second-most populous nation with 1.2 billion people, is the leading consumer of pulses and, after back-to-back droughts, is expected to increase imports sharply this year.