Lentil dal. (PulseCanada.com)

India’s drought a bonanza for Canadian pulse growers

Reading Time: 2 minutes Winnipeg/Mumbai | Reuters — Prices for Canadian pulses typically ease toward the end of the year but a recent dry spell in distant India, the world’s top producer and consumer, is driving them up. Back-to-back drought years for the first time in three decades has eroded India’s output of pulses and boosted imports. Global prices […] Read more



Errol Anderson, grain market adviser

The China (economic) factor and Canadian agriculture

Does China’s economic slowdown have to be bad news for Canada’s farmers? We ask Errol Anderson, does he see hope in the year ahead?

Reading Time: 6 minutes For the first instalment in our five-part series this fall and winter, we sat down with Calgary-based grain market adviser and regular Country Guide contributor Errol Anderson for his insights into what to look for in markets this year. The billion-dollar question, Anderson says, is what will happen in China. Other issues are important too, […] Read more


Kabuli chickpeas. (PulseCanada.com)

Chickpeas see strength in early harvest returns

Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — The chickpea harvest is slowly gathering steam across Western Canada with prices holding steady, despite the harvest pressure. In Saskatchewan, where the majority of the crop lies, one industry stakeholder estimated a fifth of the crop has been combined. “Chickpeas are 20 per cent complete or just nicely underway,” said Colin Young […] Read more

Traffic between Delhi and Agra. Prime Minister Narenda Modi is urging  reforms to free up land for roads and other development. (CIA.gov)

India’s Modi battles opposition to key land reform

Reading Time: 2 minutes New Delhi | Reuters — India’s opposition parties boycotted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest attempt to build consensus around a business-friendly land bill Wednesday, boding badly for his ambitious agenda of economic reform in a parliament session that starts next week. Almost half of India’s 31 chief ministers spurned Modi’s invitation to meet him in […] Read more



(Peggy Greb photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Hit by beef ban, Indian butchers eye Jersey cows

Reading Time: 2 minutes Mumbai | Reuters –– Battling a beef ban that has threatened their livelihoods, Muslim traders in India are seeking permission to slaughter foreign-origin Jersey cows they think will not be as sacred to the country’s majority Hindus as locally bred cattle. Several states led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra […] Read more


India’s PM boosts compensation for farmers to ease rural discontent

Reading Time: 2 minutes New Delhi | Reuters –– Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday announced higher compensation and government aid for farmers who are suffering due to unseasonable rains, in an attempt to calm growing discontent among people living in the countryside. Storms have badly damaged crops in large parts of northern India and led to anger […] Read more

Red lentils. (Pulse Canada photo)

Red varieties driving lentil acreage increase

Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — As Canada’s remaining old-crop lentils shuffle off to buyers overseas, interest is building in the potential for new crop in 2015. Chuck Penner of LeftField Commodity Research in Winnipeg said he expects more acres will be planted this spring as a result of the strong interest. “Oh, there’ll definitely be more; the […] Read more