MarketsFarm — Green lentil bids in Western Canada are trading at their highest levels of the past year, with solid new-crop pricing opportunities already becoming available.
Spot bids for large green lentils can currently be found in the 60 to 72 cents/lb. area, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire data, with new-crop contracts hitting 50 cents in some cases.
Solid end-user demand, coupled with a lack of significant farmer selling interest, was behind much of the strength in green lentils, with weakness in the Canadian dollar also supportive, according to pulse merchant David Nobbs of Purely Canada in Saskatchewan.
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“Quality was really exceptional, it’s more quantity,” another Saskatchewan buyer said of the lack of farmer selling. He noted drought conditions in some lentil-growing regions had cut into supplies, with companies now raising prices to draw out more farmer sales.
Nobbs expected the supplies were ample to meet the demand going forward, but rather the general bullishness of farmers was limiting their selling.
“We’re not running out of supply, we’re not even close,” said Nobbs, noting farmers were not seeing an urgency to price at these levels. He expected there likely wasn’t much more room to the upside for green lentil prices, with more of a chance that prices would come off their highs especially as the aggressive new-crop pricing should encourage increased acres in the spring.
Red lentil prices have failed to see the same strength as green lentils, with current bids in the 36 cents/lb. area after hitting 41 cents earlier in the fall. Nobbs noted significant demand from India, but that was not translating into higher Canadian prices as Australia had a large crop providing competition.
“This is a new thing for Canada to have to compete against Australia,” said Nobbs. India will be harvesting its next red lentil crop in the New Year, he added.
— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.
