The funding will be used to explore potential markets for pulse growers
By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com
The Canadian government has invested more than $500,000 to help identify new market opportunities for pulse growers.
Ottawa will provide Pulse Canada with $575,000 to research markets at home and abroad.
The funding will be allotted to three projects:
- $178,500 will be used to explore new markets in China, Eastern Asia, the United States and Canada,
- $221,680 will be used to promote pulses to the Canadian food service industry, and
- $175,720 will go towards Chinese pulse innovation and researching the health benefits of grain seed-based snacks.
Canadian pulse producers harvested 7.1 million tonnes of crops in 2017, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. And 2017 pulse exports are expected to reach $3.4 billion.
But international pressure is of concern to pulse farmers.
High import tariffs from India, paired with an AAFC report that estimates a reduction in pulse acreage in 2018, means the government support is a well-needed boost, said Madeleine Goodwin, manager of marketing and communications for Pulse Canada.
“As we know, there’s been some landscape changes in the pulse industry,” she told Farms.com today. “Market diversification has always been a strategy for quite some time and now more than ever is the time for Pulse Canada to be working towards new markets that will lead to sustainable growth for the long-term in the pulse industry.”
Saskatchewan’s agriculture minister echoes the need for new markets, given the continued uncertainty in Canada’s trade relationship with India.
“We’re sitting on a crop we can’t market, so a half-million dollars right now to find some new markets will be helpful,” Lyle Stewart told CBC yesterday.