The Pulse Growth Paradox

Friday, October 30, 2026

Tough agronomics & trade barriers are capping prairie pulse acres

By Richard Kamchen

What’s preventing a boom in pulse acres in Western Canada?

In 2025, combined acres of peas, lentils, and chickpeas reached an all-time high of 8.4 million acres. But that record looked more like a high-water mark than a launching point for more growth when Statistics Canada’s June acreage report estimated 2026 seedings at a million acres below 2025’s all-time high.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada spokesperson Samantha Seary says numerous factors directly affect the crops Western Canadian producers choose to grow, including crop rotations, input costs, environmental conditions, variety development, production risks, marketability, and profitability.

“Expanding pulse seeded acreage will require further growth in both domestic and global demand, including greater utilization of pulses in various applications such as food, feed, pet food and potentially industrial uses, in addition to additional domestic processing capacity,” she adds.

Seary calls value-added processing an important and growing segment of the Canadian pulse value chain.

“Canada is already a global leader in the development of leading pulse varieties and production of high-quality pulses, so leveraging this base of innovation and experienced growers is the strategic next step,” she says. “Canada already holds other key drivers to support further investments in processing, including access to affordable energy, abundant water, a strong regulatory environment, and the infrastructure to support these opportunities.”

Following canola’s example

While expanding domestic processing offers significant benefits to the sector, Seary says that only a relatively small share of Canadian pulse production is processed domestically compared with crops like canola.

Carl Potts, executive director of the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, hopes that will change.

“The canola sector is a great example of how the long-term demand building for things like canola oil and meal, particularly in the U.S., has resulted in very significant growth in domestic value-added processing, where more than 50 per cent – maybe closer to 75 per cent – of the crop is processed into oil and meal here in Canada,” he says.

Besides producing higher-value products, domestic processing – and its expansion – would create more stable and predictable demand and somewhat alleviate pulse exporters’ reliance on the at-times constrained West Coast transportation corridor.

Potts estimates that current annual domestic pulse processing stands at around 500,000 tonnes, but says that increasing those levels depends on additional investment making sense. And that hinges largely on building demand for ingredients.

Value-added ingredients

Jeff English says investments in domestic processing send a positive signal to the sector about future growth.

“At the same time, growth will also be accomplished by increasing durable, higher-value demand for Canadian pulses and pulse ingredients to support stable production,” adds the vice-president of public affairs with Pulse Canada, the national association representing pulse growers, traders, and processors.

Those value-added food ingredients range from whole pulse flours to other fractions such as proteins, starches, and fibres.

Research and innovation play important roles in enabling domestic processing of pulse ingredients, says Seary.

“These new ingredients must meet technical and quality specifications set out by buyers in order to compete with existing ingredients on the market and to see an uptake,” she says. “More research is needed to develop new uses for lower-value byproducts, and starches in particular.”

Seary notes that mechanisms like Protein Industries Canada and federal programs such as Ag Canada’s Agri- Innovate and AgriScience continue to provide research, innovation, and investment support to help companies grow this emerging market segment.

Leading ingredient opportunities

Offering the greatest opportunity for growth are combinations of pulse and cereal blends, Potts says. Blending pulses and cereal flours creates a product with a greater nutritional profile, as well as increased protein and fibre, he explains.

Potts also sees considerable growth opportunity for pulse ingredients in food products like pasta and dairy products, as well as in pet foods.

“That’s another interesting area of demand that’s really expanding, not only in the U.S., but other parts around the world.”

But more work is needed to build demand for pulse ingredients in North America for that domestic processing capacity to be built and fully utilized, Potts says.

U.S. demand

U.S. demand is essential to creating a much larger domestic value-added processing industry, according to Potts. The U.S. cemented itself as Canada’s third-largest pulse customer in 2021.

“Good demand from a processing perspective, and good demand for peas in the pet food industry as well. And that’s been driving a lot of that increased demand,” says Potts.

He attributes that success to the work of organizations like Pulse Canada over the last 20 years to document and market the attributes of pulses as ingredients, especially to U.S.-based food companies.

Seary says growth areas in the U.S. leverage pulse crops’ health, nutritional, and sustainability attributes.

“These growing markets include bakery, snack foods, milk alternatives, noodles, pet food, and animal feed,” she says. “There are also potential opportunities in retail products and food service market segments.”

But unless these markets drive new demand or U.S. domestic pulse production declines, Seary sees little potential for long-term growth. Consequently, the market presents limited capacity to offset the greater export volumes and market potential in core markets such as India (dry peas and lentils) and China (dry peas), she says.

Jonathan Driedger, vice-president of LeftField Commodity Research, believes the U.S. will continue to be an important pulse export market, but anticipates those volumes will remain relatively small compared to India and China.

“They do grow a certain amount domestically, and could potentially increase their area as well,” says Driedger. “I don’t want to discount the opportunity. Every additional outlet helps, given how the big buyers’ — India and China — (access) can vary, but it may be more ‘measured’ growth.”

Potts takes a similar view. Whereas the U.S. market is an important one for Canadian pulses, it’s more so in the context of a diversification opportunity to increase demand there to help spur more domestic value-added processing here, while also somewhat reducing Canada’s reliance on large-volume export markets. But Potts stresses the pulse industry here will continue to rely on its traditional overseas customers to move volume.

“It’s not an either/or question; it’s really about both,” Potts says. “We need to hold on to and to continue to expand demand in those key export markets.”

Adds English: “We can do both: increase domestic processing where we have a competitive advantage, while at the same time strengthening our global relationships in key export markets.”

Export volatility

Notwithstanding optimism about exports of higher-value products and how that can offer opportunities beyond whole commodity exports and potentially improve resilience against trade disruptions, the sector continues to rely on whole pulse exports.

And yet, it’s ongoing trade access unpredictability and protectionist barriers in whole pulse key markets that could disrupt the chances of a major uptick in pulse acreage.

“If we had very strong blockages to markets like India and China, that would certainly impact pulse acres, because prices would drop, and then we’d get the signal to farmers to grow a lot less,” Potts says.

Canada is heavily reliant on its export customers, as roughly 85 per cent of its approximately seven million tonne annual production is sold abroad, notes English. He says Canada has a well-earned reputation for delivering high-quality pulse crops to markets around the world, leading it to become the world’s largest exporter of pulses.

Canada ships dry peas, lentils, beans, and chickpeas to more than 120 countries every year and typically accounts for 25 to 40 per cent of global pulse exports annually.

“Strengthening our presence in international markets will continue to play an important role in the future growth of the sector,” says English.

But improving access into key overseas markets might be something of an Augean task.

Top buyers India and China have freely used various measures to block Canadian pulses, and Potts expects that to continue.

“There will be these gyrations where sometimes the market’s closed or constrained, while other times, it’s wide open. I think that’s just the reality of the market,” Potts says.

Competition heats up

Canadian pulse sales are further threatened by increasing competition in global production and trade.

“Australia represented 22 per cent of total global pulse exports in 2025, up from 16 per cent in 2024,” says Seary. “Australia has continued to increase their production of lentils and is the second largest exporter behind Canada, competing in many of the same export markets.”

Russia, too, is going after Canadian market share, emerging as a significant competitor in dry peas, increasing production and exports to key markets, including China, she says.

With Canada’s pulses facing more competition than a decade ago, English says that “developing new uses and new market opportunities to leverage the many benefits and quality advantages of Canadian- grown pulses has never been more important.”

Agronomic challenges

According to what Driedger hears from farmers and others, agronomic issues are also a barrier to running consistently higher pulse acres.

“Maybe more processing would encourage farmers to push the acres a little harder, but agronomics may be more of a limiting factor,” Driedger says.

Potts recognizes there are a couple of big issues the sector must address, namely root diseases and weeds. Also, pulse yields need to increase at rates similar to those of other larger-acre crops like canola and wheat to keep them competitive at the farm gate level, Potts says.

“You can have all the demand in the world, but if farmers can’t grow them as profitably as other crops, it’s going to be more difficult to increase acres.”

Greater trade competition from the likes of Australia, Russia, and others heightens the urgency of investing in disease and weed resistance and improved productivity, he adds. BF