Pulse markets continue to trade on an anxious note in the face of "strong rumours" India is considering a ban on pulse imports. The rumour stemmed from a recent meeting between a group of do-mestic pulse processors and Indian Politicians. Whilst explaining the meeting to Indian media, the group's leader, Suresh Aggarwal, said "We have huge stock of pulses with the government as well as the traders in the country. If we continue to import pulses, it will be difficult for farmers to get MSP (minimum support price)." Last year's imposition of a 50% import duty on peas, 30% on lentils, and 60% on both desi and Kabuli chickpeas has already had a chilling effect on trade. However, last year's import volumes strongly suggest importers and millers accumulated stocks in an-ticipation of the import duties. However, domestic markets have not responded, resulting in bids to farmers remaining below the minimum support price for most pulses. The implication is that some companies which accumulated stocks in the belief prices would jump after import duties were imposed, now regret building a speculative long position. It is not hard to imagine them trying to push the government into a decision which might have a bullish impact on India's domestic markets.
Peas- China again bodes as a major consumer of global produce and in particular, peas when talking about pulses. Market partici-pants at the recent agriculture outlook conference in Chongqing, China, suggested the country's import demand for pulses will ap-proach 1.4 million MT in the 2018 calendar year. More important-ly, they believe demand will continue to grow. Their optimism about demand for pulse protein, starch and fibre fractions is matched by investors in Canada and the United States, which are also seeing several new plants come on stream. While not offset-ting the loss of demand from India, it demonstrates the fact that all the markets for peas have yet to be discovered. Pea prices in the short term remain under pressure with the Indian duties in place. The past week has seen some improvement in track pea bids pushing $310 Port Adelaide. This has closed the gap between track and delivered markets to only $5-10, its tightest in some time. Delivered bids will need to improve to find supply, but the numbers for container freight peas aren’t quite enough to prompt bid increases and thus grower selling at this point. Sadly, there are no signs to suggest this will turn around anytime soon although, due to feed values and lack of liquidity the price shouldn’t be ex-pected to drop dramatically.
Chickpeas- Some market participants were dismayed by the USDA's seeding intentions report, believing land in the crop would see a dramatic increase this year. Instead, farmers say they intend to plant a record 665,000 acres of all classes of chickpeas in the Unit-ed States, up 7% from last year, but well below some trade esti-mates. Small chickpea intentions, at 185,500 acres, are 3% above 2017, while large chickpeas, at 479,500 acres, are expected to increase 9% from the previous year. A return to average yields would see production jump from 315,600 metric tons (MT) to just over 441,000, leaving the United States with a substantial exporta-ble surplus.
If exports climb from this season's estimated 185,600 MT to around 229,000 in the coming marketing year, residual supplies of chickpeas would be expected to soar from 20,000 to 103,000 MT or roughly enough product to cover three months of demand. With India imposing a 60% import duty on both desi and Kabuli chick-peas, imports are expected to drop sharply, suggesting there should be more competition for available demand in other destinations.
Prospective increases in North American output are following bigger Kabuli chickpea harvests in both India and Mexico. Improved sup-plies have already resulted in a general decline in world trading levels as we have seen locally since December highs. Prices have been stable the past fortnight with quiet trade. Most growers are relatively well sold on chickpeas which is favourable as production and acres look to expand this year.
Lentils- International lentil markets finished the week's trading mainly unchanged, helped by confirmation that farmers in North America intend to reduce seeded area this year. The USDA seeding intentions report said growers in the United States intend to reduce land in lentils 28% from 1.1 million to 791,000 acres. Reductions reflect a steep decline in prospective export demand and grower dissatisfaction with income levels from the crop. Although average green lentil bids are up three cents per pound in the Pacific North-west, they are down almost six cents from the previous marketing year in North Dakota and Montana. Combined with lower average yields because of last year's drought, gross income levels in the main producing regions have fallen sharply.
Farmers in Canada are also expected to reduce land in lentils. Sta-tistics Canada will release its seeding intentions report at the end of April, but markets generally believe area will be down at least 25% at 3.3 million acres, with nearly all of the drop accounted for by red. De-spite the intended 28% drop in plant-ings, a return to average yields in the United States would see production climb from around 340,000 to 378,600 metric tons (MT). By con-trast, Canadian output could drop from 2.55 to 2.18 million MT, for a net reduction in North American out-put. Continued Overleaf
Peas- China again bodes as a major consumer of global produce and in particular, peas when talking about pulses. Market partici-pants at the recent agriculture outlook conference in Chongqing, China, suggested the country's import demand for pulses will ap-proach 1.4 million MT in the 2018 calendar year. More important-ly, they believe demand will continue to grow. Their optimism about demand for pulse protein, starch and fibre fractions is matched by investors in Canada and the United States, which are also seeing several new plants come on stream. While not offset-ting the loss of demand from India, it demonstrates the fact that all the markets for peas have yet to be discovered. Pea prices in the short term remain under pressure with the Indian duties in place. The past week has seen some improvement in track pea bids pushing $310 Port Adelaide. This has closed the gap between track and delivered markets to only $5-10, its tightest in some time. Delivered bids will need to improve to find supply, but the numbers for container freight peas aren’t quite enough to prompt bid increases and thus grower selling at this point. Sadly, there are no signs to suggest this will turn around anytime soon although, due to feed values and lack of liquidity the price shouldn’t be ex-pected to drop dramatically.
Chickpeas- Some market participants were dismayed by the USDA's seeding intentions report, believing land in the crop would see a dramatic increase this year. Instead, farmers say they intend to plant a record 665,000 acres of all classes of chickpeas in the Unit-ed States, up 7% from last year, but well below some trade esti-mates. Small chickpea intentions, at 185,500 acres, are 3% above 2017, while large chickpeas, at 479,500 acres, are expected to increase 9% from the previous year. A return to average yields would see production jump from 315,600 metric tons (MT) to just over 441,000, leaving the United States with a substantial exporta-ble surplus.
If exports climb from this season's estimated 185,600 MT to around 229,000 in the coming marketing year, residual supplies of chickpeas would be expected to soar from 20,000 to 103,000 MT or roughly enough product to cover three months of demand. With India imposing a 60% import duty on both desi and Kabuli chick-peas, imports are expected to drop sharply, suggesting there should be more competition for available demand in other destinations.
Prospective increases in North American output are following bigger Kabuli chickpea harvests in both India and Mexico. Improved sup-plies have already resulted in a general decline in world trading levels as we have seen locally since December highs. Prices have been stable the past fortnight with quiet trade. Most growers are relatively well sold on chickpeas which is favourable as production and acres look to expand this year.
Lentils- International lentil markets finished the week's trading mainly unchanged, helped by confirmation that farmers in North America intend to reduce seeded area this year. The USDA seeding intentions report said growers in the United States intend to reduce land in lentils 28% from 1.1 million to 791,000 acres. Reductions reflect a steep decline in prospective export demand and grower dissatisfaction with income levels from the crop. Although average green lentil bids are up three cents per pound in the Pacific North-west, they are down almost six cents from the previous marketing year in North Dakota and Montana. Combined with lower average yields because of last year's drought, gross income levels in the main producing regions have fallen sharply.
Farmers in Canada are also expected to reduce land in lentils. Sta-tistics Canada will release its seeding intentions report at the end of April, but markets generally believe area will be down at least 25% at 3.3 million acres, with nearly all of the drop accounted for by red. De-spite the intended 28% drop in plant-ings, a return to average yields in the United States would see production climb from around 340,000 to 378,600 metric tons (MT). By con-trast, Canadian output could drop from 2.55 to 2.18 million MT, for a net reduction in North American out-put. Continued Overleaf
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