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MUMBAI (Commoditiescontrol) – Canada lentil crop could turn lower than what was anticipated higher due to heavy rainfall and water lodging in many Saskatchewan, largest producing province in the country.
Chuck Penner, Leftfield Commodity Research in ‘Pulse Grower’ report said “Earlier Saskatchewan farmers and marketers were talked to had used phrases like ‘best lentil crop ever’, but after heavy rains swept across the province, no one is saying those kinds of things anymore. Now, we are getting feedback at the other end of the spectrum, with talk of crop write-offs.”
He said it is very difficult to say with any certainty at this stage, except that it is somewhere in between the two extremes. And in between the time of writing and publication, the situation will have changed even more.
According to him the rains have caused some acres to be lost. Between downright flooding and severe root rot issues, anywhere from 5-25% of the acres could be lost. So we will present three scenarios – a 5%, 15%, and 25% loss as best-to-worst acreage cases. At the most optimistic, that would mean the largest harvested area would be 5.3 million acres and the low end would be 4.2 million acres, which would still be 260,000 acres more than last year’s record harvested area. So, even the worst case would be larger than last year, at least in terms of acreage.
The yield part of the calculation is more difficult to get a handle on. The yield problems partly stem from disease issues, but there are also concerns about heavy vegetative growth with limited podding, at least so far. We have had reports of crops nearly wiped out by flooding and root rot, but experience also tells us that farmers are more apt to share disaster stories.
Those with good looking fields tend to be a little less talkative (partly to avoid annoying farmers dealing with poor conditions). Good crops will partly offset the losses in other areas.
Under the low acreage and low yield scenario, production would be 2.6 million (M) tonnes, still about 200,000 tonnes more than last year but a far cry from earlier lofty expectations. The medium acreage and yield scenario would be a crop of 3.3 M tonnes while the top end would be 3.8 M tonnes.
For the first half of 2016-17, the market demand is fairly clear but gets murkier in the second half. There are virtually no old-crop lentil supplies in Canada and in most other countries, so this year’s crop is crucial. For red lentils, the main focus is India and purchases will be strong until its own rabi harvest in early 2017. Lentil exports for the current year (2015/16) will end up around 2.2 M tonnes, but would have been higher if supplies had been larger. Earlier, we had penciled in 3 M tonnes for 2016/17, but under the low production scenario above that will not be possible and exports would be forced to remain mostly flat at 2.2 M tonnes. Even under the medium production scenario, exports would not be able to hit our earlier target but could still rise to 2.8 M tonnes, a fair jump. Under the top-end scenario, there would be little problem hitting the 3 M tonne target.
(By Commoditiescontrol Bureau; +91-22-40015533)
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