Mung bean production may offer diversification opportunities for Ontario growers

Monday, January 2, 2012

So say researchers here and abroad, who believe that Ontario can indeed compete with China in producing this inexpensive protein.
 

by MARY BAXTER

Thirty years ago, the mung bean was a slow-growing, marginal crop in the Far East, relegated to backyard gardens where it was harvested by hand.

By 2000, China was growing 776,000 hectares of the pulse, which is used for bean sprouts, flour and food processing. And, by 2003, the country was the world's biggest exporter. Next door, in Myanmar, the crop's size reached one million hectares in 1998.

But a consultant familiar with the sprout industry says concerns about the quality of production and food safety of Chinese-produced beans may mean an opportunity for Canadian growers – including those in Ontario.

"If Ontario farmers can produce even moderate yield (of quality seeds), then that's competitive in the sprouting industry in the world market," says Jiang Zeng, a consultant who has worked with mung bean research institutes and private companies involved in mung bean production and trading, such as Nenjiang Agriculture Research Institute and Baicheng Junhu Co. One Netherlands company with whom he has worked uses 4,000 tonnes a year of mung beans to produce sprouts for the European market. The company contracts mung bean production from large-scale, formerly state-owned farms in China's northern districts.

According to a 2009 paper published by the International Food Policy Research Institute headquartered in the United States, mung beans' shift from marginal player to economic powerhouse came after researchers at The World Vegetable Centre agricultural research institute (formerly Asian Vegetable Research and Development Centre or AVRDC) in Taiwan recognized that it could provide an inexpensive protein while generating income and opportunities to diversify for farmers.

In the 1970s, agricultural researchers in the Far East began improving seed stock and introducing new approaches to field management. Today, yields in China average between one and two tonnes per hectare depending on growing conditions, Zeng estimates. Nearly half of the crop is grown in China's north in an area with a climate similar to Ontario, he says.

But much of the crop is harvested by hand. As the country's cost of labour increases, so too does the price of beans. With North America's emphasis on large-scale production, "I believe it will reach a point when it is feasible to produce that kind of product in the western world rather than largely in China," Zeng says.

There's another concern with harvesting the crop by hand – the risk of contamination by contact with people and animals. "This is a key point," says Zeng, pointing out that contaminated bean sprouts have been linked to a number of E. coli outbreaks in recent years, including one in Europe late last spring.  

Here in Canada, research on growing mung beans began in the 1980s when Soon Park, a former bean breeder at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Harrow research station, obtained germplasm (seeds or other genetic material) from the AVRDC. "It was quite an initiative by him to start looking at a new crop," notes Alireza Navabi, a bean breeding and genetics research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) at the University of Guelph.

By 1997, Park had released a variety called the AC Harosprout mungbean. It could be harvested with a combine and grow in areas with 3,000 or more crop heat units. In a 1996 academic report on the bean, Park and fellow researcher T.R. Anderson wrote that tests indicated the bean's yield ranged from 1,800 kilograms per hectare on the well-drained, sandy loamy soils the plant prefers to 660 kilograms on Brookston clay. The variety is suitable for bean sprout production.

But though the variety was available, interest in commercial production in Ontario didn't emerge until 2009, when representatives of the Japanese market approached some Ontario seed dealers. In response, AAFC researchers resumed the research Park had begun, says Navabi. They secured access to a Japanese plant gene bank and obtained new germplasm. Over the past three years, they have been planting the new varieties and the Harosprout. They have planted the bean as far north as St. Thomas and recommend that it can be planted in areas of at least 3,000 crop heat units, which includes areas south of London.

"We are hoping to be able to have a new variety," Navabi says. "So this is where our research is going."

In the meantime, some commercial seed production of the Harosprout has begun. Gord Pryde, manager for dry bean marketing with Hensall District Co-operative in Hensall, confirms his company is doing trials with the variety and harvested its first crop this year. But, because of confidentiality agreements, he cannot discuss details.

Work is also taking place in Alberta and Manitoba, where researchers have begun to make some variety selection, but Navabi doesn't think they are as far ahead as Ontario in terms of commercial seed production.

However, it will take time to determine whether the beans can be a viable crop for Ontario growers. One of the biggest challenges has been the number of crop heat units it requires. Many of the more than 300 lines acquired for testing are late to mature "so we have been selecting for earliness," Navabi says. There are other unknowns, such as the possibility of new diseases adapting to a new Ontario crop.

Peter Sikkema, an associate professor in field crop weed management at the University of Guelph's Ridgetown campus who is researching herbicide applications for the beans in Ontario, notes that they show a good tolerance to most grass herbicides. Where research is needed is on broadleaf control in the crop and determining which products are safe to apply, he says. Currently, there are very few herbicides registered for use in mung beans and more are needed.  

There is also the question of how its profitability compares to that of high-profit crops such as soybeans and corn. Canada's ability to compete in terms of price with a major exporter like China is another question to be explored.

But Zeng is confident that, with the technology available to them, Canadians can compete. Quality sprouting seeds with a high germination rate and uniform appearance earn more money on the market. "I know that the sprouters would pay more to solve these problems," he says. BF