25 The Business of Prairie Agriculture Better Farming | July/August 2024 restaurant and institutions, to consume more pulses,” Goodman says. “On the positive side, pulses have many desirable health and nutritional benefits, which provide advantageous marketing attributes vs. existing food ingredients, and will help grow demand.” But Neil Townsend, market analyst with GrainFox, doubts consumers are ready to buy more right now. Grocery shoppers in Canada and the U.S. are typically more likely to experiment with a more expensive product if it offers nutritional benefits, but not when their food budgets are stretched thin. “With entire food budgets going up, people have to pick and choose. So, more niche items end up being the things that get cut out of the grocery cart,” Townsend says. Farmers’ keenness limited Farmers aren’t showing signs of a desire to jump in with both feet either. English repeats the agronomic benefits pulses offer that farmers have heard for many years: That they require little to no nitrogen fertilizer to grow, thus lowering input costs, while benefiting yields in future seasons. English adds that crops like wheat and barley produce higher yields and have higher protein when grown after pulses. But disease and weed pressures have been anything but positive for farmers who are growing pulses. Goodman lists a number of factors that could help encourage farmers to put more pulses in the ground, including: Targeted investments that will help develop pulse varieties that are resistant to disease and resilient to environmental stress, and address major biotic and abiotic threats. Crop protection products and other practices that allow pulses to better compete with key disease threats, such as Aphanomyces and Fusarium, anthracnose, Ascochyta, and other bacterial blights. Herbicide programs to help compete with weed pressures, given pulses lack the major herbicide tolerance traits available to other field crops. Another factor limiting farmers’ interest is market access, as trade barriers restrict their ability to market their crops. And until demand dynamics change, production likely won’t either, says Voth. “It always seems like a bit of a Catch-22, where we need to see demand increases to change production volumes, but production volumes can’t change without demand increases,” Voth says. BF BAUMALIGHT.COM Adair Sales & Marketing Company Inc. 306-773-0996 | info@adairreps.com MANUFACTURING MINI SKID STEERS AND A VARIETY OF ATTACHMENTS INCLUDING BRUSH MULCHERS | ROTARY BRUSH CUTTERS | STUMP GRINDERS | PTO GENERATORS | DRAINAGE PLOWS | EXCAVATOR ADAPTERS | TREE SAWS & SHEARS | BOOM MOWE TRENCHERS | TREE PULLERS | FELLER BUNCHERS | TREE SPADES | SCRE MANITOBA AG DAYS FARM SAFETY BREEDING DECISIONS GLYPHOSATE UPDATE MARCH 2023 $9.50 SEEDBED PREP IN ’23 Tillage Technology GENE EDITING Improving Crops CANOLA FLOWERING Emergence Issues 16 26 24 20 TELL US HOW WE’RE DOING: Paul.Nolan@BetterFarming.com We thank our loyal readers for making Better Farming the Prairie producer’s trusted source for insight and analysis. We know we need to earn your trust every month, with every magazine. It’s our assurance and pledge to the farmers of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba – and the agricultural industry across Canada. RICHARD KAMCHEN Richard Kamchen is a veteran agricultural freelance writer based in Winnipeg, Man. Update on Pulses
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