Bumper crops send lentil prices plunging

So much for the lentil shortage.

Prices for a food staple of vegetarians across the globe are plunging from record highs in April after Canada, the world’s top exporter, began its largest harvest ever and output rose in the U.S. and India, the biggest consumer.

Supplies are increasing for other so-called pulse crops, including chickpeas and dried beans, signalling discounts from costs that had skyrocketed.

“Buyers will look to renegotiate contracts,” said Colin Topham, managing director in Vancouver for Agrocorp International, an agricultural trading company based in Singapore. “In rare circumstances, you’ll get defaults where they just simply won’t take the goods.”

Prices began soaring in 2014 after rains damaged Canada’s harvest and India’s weak monsoon reduced domestic output. The rally encouraged farmers in North America to plant more.

Canada will see its lentil production jump 36 per cent this year to a record 3.2 million metric tons, while pea output climbs 44 per cent to an all-time high of 4.6 million tons, the government estimates.

In 2014, the lentil crop shrank 12 per cent.

In the U.S., growers expanded the area planted to lentils by 89 per cent this year to a record 930,000 acres, much of that coming at the expense of land previously used for wheat, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.

Rising supplies have sent prices sinking. Top-quality laird lentils tumbled 34 per cent to 52.85 cents a pound in Saskatchewan this week, down from 80 cents in April, according to Brian Clancey, president and senior market analyst at Vancouver-based Stat Communications Ltd.