Cargill announces they will no longer buy or handle yellow peas in western Canada!!!

[WiltonRanch]

I don't get all the hate for pea protien. Isn't another market for peas a good thing. You don't have to like it, but don't bash it either.

Another market is always a good thing. Though, suspicion of the legitimacy of it being a solid business plan on its own merits not dependent on government support or current zeitgeist makes the alternative protein market questionable. It’s like the countless strawboard plants which like the alternative protein companies had/have celebrity investors like David Cameron and Woody Harrelson, only to go bust because it’s a passion project with little to no business case or inferior product.

[westernvicki]

The grain handling sector, from pulses to terminals is overbuilt. I doubt anyone is making money, as elevators are operating at reduced capacity. Costs are up across the board and the carbon tax is an operational slug trough the whole value chain.

Cargill likely looked at the pulse balance sheet and decided to put the plug in it. Ingredion did the same a few weeks earlier.

The Pulse industry started with niche market players. I expect the profit is still in this segment. And the value add sector now adds diversity to this market further.

Sask Pulse Growers invested in the International Year of the Pulses with Pulse Canada, which included all of the global pulse federations. This was intended to make the world aware of the pulse protein. Canada invested in the protein supercluster built upon the pulse protein platform. Protein Industry Canada has invested considerably into the expansion with indeed variable success. There is no menu, and market development in food is tough, to say the least. However, the success of value-added sector is fundamental to all of Western Canadian agriculture. Providing domestic markets is key to diverse demand when we are losing market share globally for two basic reasons: price competition & geographic advantages.

Maintaining markets in the world is a policy issue which indeed Canada needs to take more seriously as we see ongoing issues with our major trading partners of China and India.

Which is why I suggest our ag associations in Western Canada need to own policy directly and not just production issues.

Indeed the climate cult has a preference for plant-based meat and pulse protein. Insect protein is preferred it seems! And they have denigrated beef, falsely, for the negative contribution to climate. As a person who pushes the falsehood back, I must say the response from the beef sector has been limp, to say the least. But it's even worse from the commodity groups who pompously say:
Beef has nothing to do with me, I am a grain farmer!

Case in point Bill C 293! The province of Alberta aside, they took the lead.

Indeed, the grain industry needs the feed sector for the huge demand and market dynamics they create. Where does canola meal go after all?

We are in a wake up call time. We need to define what makes us relevant in the rapidly expanding protectionism in world of ag and trade. We have been here before and we always lose.

I have posted earlier about issues I see as essential: Efficiency, review of all programs, carbon credits included, leading genetics and I suggest that we all accept the fact:
We are either part of the solution of part of the problem.
Be an ambassador.

It is your industry: Own it.

And yes, we need a Federal election.