By Brian Clancey, STAT Publishing
March 2026

Markets seem to be proving a classic saw: the cure for high prices is high prices and the cure for low prices is low prices. That means when prices stay high for a long time, farmers try to increase production while reducing acreage when prices remain low for a long time.

We can see the impact this year. Not only do we have a mountain of unsold peas, green lentils, and chickpeas: so does the world.

On a global basis, prospective returns from growing pulses were above average for the two years between September of 2023 and September of 2025.

There is not as much market transparency in many countries as there is here. As a result, price increases in Canada happened early enough to affect pulse seedings in 2024. In other parts of the world, it took until 2025 to see the full impact of higher average returns relative to grains and oilseeds.

Our harvest of peas, beans, lentils, and chickpeas jumped from 4.95 million tonnes in 2023 to 6.14 million in 2024 and a near record 8.4 million last year. There was almost no change in global production between 2023 and 2024 but last year, the global harvest soared by an estimated four million tonnes to 96.46 million.

Though the weighted average price of pulses in Canada declined right after the 2024 harvest, they trended upward through February and March of last year, giving farmers confidence about the kind of prices they would see during the current marketing year.

When Statistics Canada released its seeding intentions report for 2025, markets were not overly surprised by the numbers for peas and lentils. There were some doubts about the intentions for chickpeas and dry edible beans. In the end farmers planted more lentils, chickpeas, and beans than expected, while slightly reducing land in field peas.

Green lentils accounted for all of last year’s increase in lentil area. In the end green lentils accounted for 52% of our lentil area, compared to 39% in 2024. It was not surprising that land in greens increased. What was surprising is a group of Canadian exporters refused to believe green lentil area jumped as much as it did. This kept spot and new crop price indications to farmers elevated until July, when export asking prices for green lentils finally started declining.

It is likely that some exporters and processors did not want to see prices adjust too rapidly. They had forward sold 2025 crop green lentils at prices that ended being almost double what was available in spot markets. Having used those sales to justify new crop bids to growers, they feared losing money due to defaults and/or demands from some importers to renegotiate prices.

There is not a farmer who did not appreciate the slow reaction of prices to last year’s huge increases in supply. However, there were exporters in other countries who were impatient to sell their local harvests. As a result, their offers to importers were cheaper than ours. This helped speed up the decline in overall prices for pulses.

Turkey is a good example of the expansion of lentil production outside North America. Red lentils dominate Turkish imports, accounting for 85% in recent years.

In 2022, Canada supplied 79% of all imported lentils. That slipped to 62% the following year, 50% in 2024, and only 28% during the 2025 calendar year. During the same period, imports for Kazakhstan jumped from 12% to 49% last year, while Russia’s market share advanced from 7% to 20%.

The shift was more dramatic in red lentils, where Kazakhstan’s market share leapt from 11% in 2022 to 54% last year, while our market share sank from 91% to 26%. In greens, our market share declined from 60% in 2022 to 40% last year, while Russia’s doubled from 20% to 40%.

Even before China imposed its 100% import duty on Canadian peas, we were losing market share to Russia. In 2021 and 2022 we had a 90% market share. That sank to 59% in 2023, 43% in 2024, and only 28% last year. Russia’s share started at 34% in 2023 and grew to 60% last year.

We did not lose market because we cannot produce good quality product or take care of buyers. Price was likely one of the most important factors. That is obvious in China, where Russian peas were cheap enough to overtake the country’s feed pea needs.

When China imposed a 100% import duty on Canadian peas on March 8 of 2025, there was an immediate price response from Russia. It raised asking prices, but our export asking prices did not change much because of good movement to India. Prices offered farmers sank from around $10.70 per bushel to $9.50 before stabilizing at around $10 through last June.

It needs to be said that the import duty did not prevent some companies in China from buying our peas. However, some food processors did buy from Russia. The implication is that while some companies seem to have a strong preference for our quality, others will buy cheaper peas if the quality is good enough. More importantly, as Russian exporters gain experience, they may just need to be competitive.

As these events in pulse markets unfolded, global trading levels for oilseeds were increasing. Even though global grain prices were seeing big changes, price relationships were moving against pulses.

Several years ago, I started calculating a weighted average price index for pulses in Canada, the United States, and the world. Over the years there has been a good relationship between that index and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indices for grains and oilseeds.

When the global price index gets out of line with those for grains and oilseeds, farmers tend to react by planting more or less pulses. To the extent possible, all farmers try to plant a mix of crops they believe will result in higher net returns.

Prospective returns from pulses as a percentage of grains and oilseeds have fallen sharply since 2023, 2024, and the first half of 2025. This is true internationally as well as in Canada. As a result, land in pulses would be expected to decline internationally. The situation is magnified in Canada by this season’s increase in stocks of peas, green lentils, and chickpeas on farms.

We will likely see record high quantities of peas and lentils left on farms at the end of the marketing year. Most of the increase in the lentil carry-over will because of overproduction of greens last year. While the bulk of the pea carry-over will be yellow, ending stocks of greens could be the highest they have ever been.

On their own, full bins would be expected to cause some growers to reduce land in peas and lentils. But when you add in the fact those crops are now underperforming relative to grains and oilseeds in terms of prospective returns per acre, it is hard to be optimistic about this year’s seeded area.

Even so, there is room for optimism about export demand in the coming marketing year. Markets are hopeful India will not dramatically change its policies regarding pulse imports after March 31. India’s farmers expected better returns if they planted wheat and other grains during last year’s kharif and this winter’s rabi season planting windows. As a result, they planted less pulses than hoped.

Because 2025/26 pulse harvests have not met government expectations, markets doubt India will ban yellow pea imports, though it is expected to retain an import duty of at least 30%. Other than this, China will eliminate its import duty, and other countries are expected to plant fewer pulses. That could reduce competition for available demand. But, barring a crop failure in a major producing region and/or the emergence of unexpected demand, it is hard to see prices gathering a lot of upward momentum until we start worrying about what will be planted in 2027 and how those crops might develop.

Brian Clancey is the Editor and Publisher of www.statpub.com market news website and President of STAT Publishing Ltd. He can be reached at editor@statpub.com.