MAY13

CommodityFocusSUNFLOWERS

FeaturedTopicENVIRONMENT

Sustainable Practices in Argentina 14

Dissecting the USDA Prospective Planting Report 20

Content

02 IFTmag

08 Haricot Bean: Ethiopia’s Top Pulse Export

10 U.S. Confection Sunflower Planting Underway

12 Interview: Shyam Venkatesan

28 Opportunities for China’s Improved SunflowersPowered by www.goIFT.com

Can Pulses Save the Planet? 04

Sunflower Seeds with a Kick 20

DirectorNicole Calzacorta

Copy EditorsDario Bard, Charlie Higgins

Editorial TeamDario Bard, Charlie Higgins, Nicole Calzacorta

Editorial Standards ChairmanDario Bard

Contributors:Dario Bard, Charlie Higgins, Dr. Randall Fairman, Mekonnen Teshome

Editorial DesignDiego Fabbri Arpón

Advertising SalesContact Nicole Calzacorta at nicole@goift.com ©IFT Solutions, Inc. 2013 All Rights Reserved / ISSN 0000-0002

The industrial agriculture system has produced countless “mira-cles” over the last century: cows that pump ten times as much milk as their ancestors; super crops like corn and soybeans that facilitate the manufacturing of everything from breakfast cereal to toothpaste; and pesticides that eliminate voracious plagues in one clean sweep.

But such achievements in mass food production have also resul-ted in devastating and, in many cases, irreversible consequen-ces. Monoculture farming, the growing of a single crop on city-sized plots of land, has greatly increased our dependence on dangerous pesticides and unsus-tainable practices, particularly in the United States. Vast sections of rainforest have been cleared for cattle grazing, a greenhouse-gas producing industry the Uni-ted Nations has called “the grea-test threat to the climate, forests and wildlife.” Each year the list of endangered species grows, and our gluttonous, carnivorous food

system is largely to blame.

The flaws of global agriculture are numerous and varied, none of which have simple solutions. On a fundamental level, the world community needs to rein-force the use of products that are good for the planet, healthy and animal friendly. With their low environmental impact and high energy efficiency, pulses offer at least one grain of hope.

Since the 1960s, the United Na-tions has declared a diverse list of international “Years of”s, among them the International Year of Peace (1986), Internatio-nal Year of the Ocean (1998), In-ternational Year of Microcredit (2005), and even International Year of Quinoa (2013). This year the International Pulses Trade and Industries Confederation (CICILS-IPTIC) is pushing the Uni-ted Nations to declare 2016 “In-ternational Year of Pulses” to raise awareness about the envi-ronmental and societal benefits of these super crops. Why are

pulses suddenly getting so much attention, and what is their po-tential role in making over our messy international food system?

While you probably won’t start to see hummus or chickpeas at the Argentine dinner table any time soon, the emerging cash crop has shown enormous potential for growers and exporters. Accor-ding to Key Market, an Argentine market research firm, the total surface area for garbanzos could reach 350,000 hectares if the in-dustry remains solid.

“Green” BeansThe scarcity of fresh water, a re-newable but finite resource, has become a hot button issue in re-cent years. Just 2.5–2.75% of all the water on Earth is fresh water, the rest comprised of oceans, seas and saline groundwater. Of all the fresh water used by humans, roughly 70 percent is used for agriculture, with a disproportiona-te amount spent on livestock.

Can PulsesSave The Planet?

FEATURE

04 IFTmag

By Charlie Higgins

Energy-efficient pulses contribute to biodiversity and produce less greenhouse gas emissions than livestock or soybeans. Everything you need to know about the humble beans that could save our planet.

756Pork

368Peanuts

216

Soybeans1,857

Beef

469

Chicken

43Pulses

Compared to the world’s leading grain and animal protein sources, pulses are extremely water-effi-cient. It takes a whopping 1,857 ga-llons of water to produce just one pound of beef, according to the USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council; pul-ses require just 43 gallons to pro-duce that amount. Even soybeans need five times more water (216 gallons per pound) than pulses do. In a country like India, home to one sixth of the world’s popula-tion with less than 10 percent of its fresh water supply, pulses play an increasingly vital role in maintai-ning food supplies.

Pulses also have a secret weapon that makes them extraordinary among most commercial crops: they supply their own nitrogen. Most crops require outside assis-tance in this department via mi-

neral fertilizers, the production and distribution of which is one of the world’s top contributors to greenhouse gases. Spreading one ton of nitrogen fertilizer re-quires about one ton of fossil fuel, a tidy statistic that illustrates the colossal energy demand of this type of unsustainable farming.

Widely used as rotational crops, pulses replace the need for com-mercial fertilizers by replenis-hing nitrogen in the soil, which can then be reused to grow corn, soybeans and other plants. Ac-cording to the Pulse Crop Ge-netic Improvement Network, over the course of a year pulse crops can fix between 100 and 400 kg of nitrogen per hectare. Humans have employed this te-chnique for thousands of years; only when nitrogen fertilizers

became widely available did the strategy begin to shift.

Biodiversity, something sorely lacking in our Monsanto-driven monoculture food system, is another benefit of pulses that is worth mentioning. Soybean pro-duction has eliminated an esti-mated 1.2 million hectares per year of the Amazon Rainforest, one of the most bio-rich ecosys-tems on Earth. These monoto-nous fields of genetically identical soybean plants must be sprayed incessantly with harmful pes-ticides, furthering negative im-pacts. Replacing large portions of soybean plantings with eco-friendly pulses would at least be-gin to recover biodiversity in the region.The same holds true for other ecosystems that have suffe-red from monoculture farming.

American Pulse AssociationFactsheet on Pulse Sustainability

It takes 1,857 gallons of water

to produceone pound of beef!

It only takes43 gallons of water

to produceone pound of pulses.

Water Footprints (Gallons)

A Chickpea A Day…The environment isn’t the only thing our industrial food complex is destroying. With diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, osteoarthritis, asthma and other obesity-related diseases continuing to rise at an alarming rate in the developed world, it’s clear that what we eat—chemical byproducts pumped full of high fructose corn syrup and saturated fat—is lar-gely to blame. Our food is killing us.

Meanwhile, in the developing world, chronic hun-ger affects an estimated 925 million people, while roughly one third of the population suffers from vi-tamin and mineral deficiencies. Although world agriculture can produce 17 percent more calories per person today than it could 30 years ago, malnu-trition continues to be one of the greatest obsta-cles towards development.

Increased consumption of pulses may not sol-ve these world health crises but it could certainly help. Chickpeas, lentils, dry beans and peas are all excellent sources of dietary fiber, as well as es

sential vitamins and minerals like iron, zinc, mag-nesium, calcium and folate. They also have a low glycemic index, which is associated with improved metabolic control and lowered risk for obesity, car-diovascular disease and diabetes. They are also very cheap compared to most other protein sources. A 2009 study by the Government Office for Scien-ce in London found a direct correlation between economic growth and increased consumption of meat and processed foods, a relationship that be-comes clearly evident when comparing the diet of a middle class American to that of a poor Somali. Thus development is a double-edged sword: the more money we have, the more we destroy the environ-ment through our eating habits. Greater consump-tion of sustainable plant proteins—pulses being a shining example—is one way to combat the world’s environmental and health problems, and it’s one we ought to consider.

06 IFTmag

Food for Thought: A 2011 study found that greenhouse gas emissions for legumes consumed in Sweden were between 0.38-1.3 CO2 equivalents per kilogram; emissions from chicken, pork, cheese and beef production, on the other hand, ranged from 2.9 to 40 CO2 equivalents per kilogram.

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UPDATE

Ethiopia generated US$75.3 million from the export of 113.8 million tons of haricot beans, the country’s top pulse export, during its last growing season (July 2012 to March 2013).

Other major pulse exports reported by the Official Trade Ministry in-clude (in order of export tonnage): chickpeas, horse beans, mung beans, soybeans, vetch and lupine.

According to the Ministry, the country generated US$150.9 million from the export of 228 million tons of pulses in the stated period of time. In the past month alone, the country generated US$24.5 million in pulse exports, representing 84 percent of its goal of US$29.1 million. Pulse ex-ports increased by 64.7% compared to the same period last year.

In terms of oil seeds, sesame (US$239 million / 147.630 tons), ground nut (US$13.7 million / 12,083 tons) and niger seeds (US$12 million / 15,365 tons) have been the leading exports.

Pulses contribute to the livelihood of smallholder farmers in multiple ways by improving food security and as an affordable source of protein. Pulses can also have an income benefit for smallholders. Pulses occupy approximately 13 percent of cultivated land in the country.

An Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency (CSA) 2012 report states that 7,482,410 smallholder farmers produced 23,162,012.43 quintals of pulses across the country by cultivating 1,616,809.37 hectares of land last year during the Meher harvest season (September-December 2011).

Most farmers in Ethiopia do not use chemical fertilizers and, consequently, the country produces organic pulses. The Ethiopian pulse industry faces the challenge of the limited availability and use of improved seeds. The primary producers of pulses are also smallholders with small and disper-sed rain-fed plots.

Pulse marketing, from producer to consumer, is a complex process involving multiple intermediaries. This and creating market linkage around the globe are pending tasks needed to boost Ethiopia’s export trade in the future.

Haricot Bean:Ethiopia’s Top Pulse ExportBy Mekonnen Teshome

08 IFTmag

The affordable protein is part of a list of organic pule

crops helping to improve the livelihood of smallholder

farmers in the country.

FEATURE

U.S.Confection Sunflower Planting Underway

The confection sunflower planting season is underway with the USDA reporting a planting intention of 285,000 acres, most of it in North Dakota (96,000 acres) as usual.

“That would be one of the lowest planted acrea-ges we’ve seen in the last 10 years,” says Brian An-drew of Red River Commodities. He sees sunflower, like other non-GMO food crops, losing ground to bio-fuel and genetically modified crops.

The biggest planting intention increase is in Kansas (up 50 percent to 27,000 acres). Steve Swaffar, Executive Director of the Kansas Sunflower Commission, sees two factors driving farmers to plant confection sun-flower this year.

“One is drought conditions. All 105 counties in the State of Kansas are currently under some sort of drought-related declaration at the fede-ral level,” he notes. Sunflower, with its deep tap root, is a drought-resistant crop.

“The other is simply market price.” Swaffar points out that confection sunflower pays well and at US$38/cwt, it is currently more than US$15 higher than oilseed sunflower.

Another factor influencing planting decisions is crop insurance. Federal crop insurance for confection sun-flower stands at US$33/cwt for 2013. Other crops, such as corn, have a higher insurance value.

“Some growers farm the insurance program ins-tead of the land,” remarks Andrew, noting that some producers will grow corn under dry conditions knowing it will fail because they believe they are bet-ter off collecting an insurance payment than plan-ting something else.

On the demand side, sunflower consumption is up 39 percent domestically over the past 10 years, with in-shell confection exports up 86 percent overall over the same period.

“I feel as though the market is expanding both domestically and internationally,” says Dan Dale of Advanced Sunflower. He attributes the growing demand to the health benefits of sunflowers, their relatively low price and their non-GMO status.

Looking ahead at the 2013 harvest, Andrew says, “If we don’t have very good yields, we’ll have a supply issue. If we have average or above-avera-ge yields, supply and demand will be balanced.”

Dale is optimistic about the 2013 crop. “I got a rea-lly good feeling about it,” he says. “I think it’s a great opportunity for growers in the upper Mid-west, with the late spring and dry year confec-tion sunflower is a very good alternative crop.”

10 IFTmag

By Dario Bard

“In the U.S., sunflower has to compete with geneti-cally modified corn that yields 190 to 200 bushels an acre. In Eastern Europe, where there is a bio-tech ban, sunflower is competing with corn that yields 90 to 100 bushels per acre,” he says. This is resulting in what Andrew calls an “origin shift.”

“Another factor is that, as far as I’m aware, sun-flowers don’t cause an allergic reaction. So they are taking the place of peanuts in the form of sunflower butter versus peanut butter. It sol-ves problems for school lunch programs, and provides an alternative snack for people with peanut and tree nut allergies.”

INTERVIEW

We bring you the inside scoop on this year’s Canada-India lentil trade from one of the industry’s key players.

Shyam Venkatesan, Senior Trader at Legumex Walker

Shyam Venkatesan knows that feeding one sixth of the world’s population is a big responsibility, but one that offers plenty of rewards. As a marketing Senior Trader at Legumex Walker, one of Canada’s largest processors and merchandisers of pulses and specialty crops, Venkatesan has seen India’s demand for Ca-nadian lentils skyrocket over the years.

IFT: Why has India been such a successful market for Canadian lentils, besides obvious factors like population growth and culinary traditions?

Shyam Venkatesan: India is a price-sensitive mar-ket and substitution of pulses often occurs in the diet. This explains the increasing usage of Cana-dian green lentils, as they have often been cheaper than the traditional pigeon peas. The green lentils are split into dal and consumed. Indian splitters are able to get a higher splitting efficiency from green lentils than from pigeon peas. The dal made from green lentils also cooks faster than the toor dal from pigeon peas. This is an important factor for the fa-mily as it leads to savings on expensive cooking gas. Red lentils are popular as they are also substituted for other expensive pulses. The domestic crop of red lentils in recent years has fallen short due to weather events and lack of scientific cultivation. This has led to increasing imports.

IFT: How has Canada’s lentil industry evolved over the past 20 years and what do you think the future will bring?

SV: There was hardly any incentive to grow lentils in Canada 20 years ago. With increasing demand and better returns, the producers have taken to growing more lentils in their crop rotation. The fact that it is an important element in nitrogen fixation is also a

factor. Demand has risen due to changing patterns of agricultural production in countries like Turkey where the farmers have found it more profitable to switch to other crops. Awareness about the health benefits of lentils and the trend towards a vegetarian diet are also contributing factors. Lentils have a bright future as the vegetarian population is growing rapidly and the health benefits of pulses are being well advertised.

IFT: What has been the general outlook among lentil growers and traders during the first quarter of 2013?

SV: Interest in lentils perked up in the industry in De-cember 2012 when it became apparent that the red lentil acreage in India had declined and the pigeon pea crop had also been poor. This resulted in steady demand in the first quarter of 2013. At this point in time there are a number of imponderables in play. The weather and the conditions on the ground will largely determine the planting intentions of the growers, which at this time are in a state of flux. The trading community expects the demand to be sus-tained for lentils right through the year.

IFT: How is the Indian lentil crop looking now and how will this affect sales of Canadian lentils in 2013?

SV: Earlier expectations were that the red lentils price spike in India was temporarily caused by dwindling stocks and delayed domestic harvest. The decline in

12 IFTmag

By Charlie Higgins

price that was expected never came. Probable cau-ses that have been propounded include: (a) a more serious crop shortage than expected and (b) spe-culative buying by stockists and importers. Traders now are of the opinion that the demand from the Indian subcontinent for red lentils will be sustained right through the year although prices may plateau.

IFT: How has the shortage of tur (pigeon peas) in India, as evidenced by the purchase tender for 21,000 mt of Canadian green lentils at the end of 2012, affected demand?

SV: The demand for green lentils is largely due to the tenders by the State Government of Tamil Nadu. Since the pigeon pea prices are high and green len-tils are cheaper, the Government has been steadily tendering for the dal made from green lentils. The dal from green lentils, called yellow lentils, is distri-buted through the shops in the Public Distribution System (PDS). If the price gap narrows, the demand from the Government could decrease.

IFT: Do you think Indian demand for Canadian len-tils will be enough to lift the burden of heavy stock-piles? How are farmers responding to this situation?

SV: As far as red lentils are concerned, yes, the de-mand from the Indian subcontinent will substan-tially reduce the stockpile of red lentils in Canada. The green lentil situation depends on how long the Indian Government tenders continue. Farmers have taken advantage of this opportunity to move their burdensome stocks at pretty good values which they probably didn’t expect in the fall of 2012.

IFT: What role would you say marketing plays in the sale of pulses around the world? What does it take to sell lentils and introduce your products into new markets?

SV: Having an excellent network of agents and cus-tomers worldwide, serviced by a diverse merchan-dising team, is an obvious advantage for Legumex Walker. Giving the customer what they want is key to increasing market share. One size doesn’t fit all—it is here that Legumex Walker, through its market in-telligence, has been able to develop niche markets. Having determined the quality that a specific market needs we go to great lengths to maintain that quali-ty and therefore customer loyalty.

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14 IFTmag

Sustainable Practices in Argentina

FEATURE

By Dario Bard

Confection Sunflower Production

The South American country is recognized around the world for its pioneering role in the development of no-till farming.

16 IFTmag

When it comes to sustainable farming, Argentina is recognized interna-tionally as the leader in one particular practice that is catching on world-wide: no-till farming. On a recent trip to the country, a delegation from Australia’s Conservation Agriculture and No-till Farming Association found that 90 percent of Argentine growers practice zero-till farming.

Farm Products, an Argentine company involved in the commercializa-tion of confection sunflower seeds, reports that the use of this te-chnique is increasing year after year as its advantages become more and more evident. No-till benefits include higher productivity due to increased moisture retention, less soil erosion and increased organic content in the soil due to greater ground cover, reduced greenhouse gas emissions due to soil carbon storage, and reduced costs due to savings on equipment, manpower and fuel consumption. According to Farm Products, no-till farming is the most sustainable agricultural practice available today.

“In Argentina, we started to see the expansion of no-till farming with RR soybeans around 1995,” says Facundo Quiroz, Chief of the Sun-flower Group at the Balcarce Unidad Integral of the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA) (national agriculture and livestock technology institute) and the Department of Agricultural Science, Na-tional University of Mar del Plata. “Then corn and wheat followed. For sunflower seeds, it began to take off in 2002.”

It is estimated that during the 2001-2002 growing season, 30 percent of the sunflower crop was sown using the no-till method. That figure grew gradually over the years to reach today’s levels. Even so, Quiroz points out that sustainable practices, such as no-till sowing, are more advanced with respect to oil sunflower than confection sunflower pro-duction. This is due in part to modest investments in research for the latter given its relatively smaller market size.

For this reason, confection sunflower growers also utili-ze integrated pest management strategies, including careful selection of lot and sowing date, crop rotation, infestation monitoring and the use of decoy crops.

“In La Pampa, pigeons are a problem for confection sunflower. So, together with their crop, farmers are planting a particular type of sunflower that grows with its head held upright, as opposed to others, which grow drooped over. This can even be an oil sunflower type. The important thing is that it is at-tractive to the pigeons, which have an easier time feeding off sunflowers with an upright head.”

Another move to sustainable sunflower growing involves the use of fertilizers.

“About 20 years ago, the thinking of growers was that sunflowers didn’t respond to fertilization, so fertilizers weren’t used,” says Quiroz. “But now we see a considerable increase in the use of fertilizers.”

For many oil sunflower growers, the shift to no-till sowing was made possible in 2002 thanks to the availability of weed-resistant varieties. In this res-pect, Clearfield technology was especially impor-tant. Sunflower seeds with Clearfield technology have weed resistance built-in at the genetic level. This was achieved not through genetic modifica-tion (Argentine sunflower products are GMO-free) but rather through the identification of a naturally-occurring wild sunflower mutation and its incor-poration into commercial seed varieties through cross-fertilization.

Clearfield technology has less of an environmental impact than traditional herbicides and is also more effective because it has a wide-spectrum of weed control and is not as sensitive to changing climate conditions. With this advanced seed technolo-gy available for oil sunflower production in 2002, growers quickly saw greater yields as losses from weeds were significantly reduced.

“Disease control is important in sunflower production, and especially in confection sunflower pro-duction,” explains Quiroz. “Confection sunflower plantings are less dense than oil sunflower plantings. If you plant more than 50,000 plants per hectare, you could affect the size of the seed, and that will affect the quality of your product. And so the disease factor is especially important in confection sunflower because you are dealing with lower densities.”

Farm Products cites the use of fertilizers to restore the soil’s chemical composition as one of its sustai-nable farming practices.

“No-till farming has been important in Argentina as a way to address soil erosion. If we are indeed a lea-der in sustainable agriculture, it is mostly due to no-till planting,” says Quiroz.

No-till planting is a sustainable farming technique that Argentina seems intent on improving even fur-ther. At the 18th International Sunflower Conferen-ce held in February 2012 in Mar del Plata, Alfredo Lange, a consultant with CREA Mar y Sierras, gave a presentation on the challenges facing no-till produc-tion. These include, among others, the difficulties of using mechanical seeders on non-tilled lots and the development of favorable breeding habitat for slugs and woodlice in the crop stubble. In his presentation, Lange states that the no-till method presents more challenges for sunflowers than for other crops.

Nonetheless, he says there are solutions or at least means to lessen the impact of many of these pro-blems. He concludes by stressing the importance of continued research on no-till sunflower growing, no-ting that research for other crops is far more advan-ced in this regard, and warning that unless this gap is closed, the sunflower industry may find itself lo-sing acreage to these alternative crops.

18 IFTmag

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UPDATE

This summer, Sumseeds are going international. Jim Pagetto, President of PJ Marketing, one of the largest sourcing websites in North America with more than 900,000 product lines on its website, intends to launch these energized sunflower seeds in Canada, marking the product’s first foray into a foreign market.

“We feel confident we are going to do well in Canada,” says Pagetto. “Our first test market is 600 locations throughout the country and we think we can move some product here.” Pagetto points out that these 600 locations belong to just one of a number of interested buyers.

Sumseeds are produced by Dakota Valley Products, a food company ba-sed in Willow Lake, South Dakota. Tim Walter, the company’s presi-dent, explains the Sumseeds concept:

“One 150g bag of Sumseeds is equivalent to two Red Bulls,” says Pagetto. “But when you eat them, the absorption is slow, so you get the energy, but you aren’t getting zapped and coming down real hard.”

Sumseeds’ low caffeine-sugar ratio gives the body a sustained energy boost without the sugar crash commonly experienced with energy drinks. According to Pagetto, energy drinks have a sugar level of about 25 per-cent; Sumseeds’ sugar level is 2 percent.

Pagetto had his family and friends try Sumseeds and they found the product tasty and felt it gave them a nice, sustained energy level. A food broker in Canada got so excited with the product’s potential when Pagetto had him try some that he shared it with a promising buyer.

“There isn’t another product like this,” says Pagetto. “There are more than 200 products in the energy drink category, but when it comes to energi-zed sunflower seeds, there’s Sumseeds and that’s it.”

Sunflower Seeds with a KickBy Darío Bard

20 IFTmag

“It’s like an energy drink in a bag. We start with the nutritional content of top-quality roasted sunflower seeds—protein, thiamine, vitamin E, iron, phosphorous, potassium and calcium—and then, through our unique process, we infuse them with caffeine, taurine, ginseng and lysine.”

Energy-enhanced Sumseeds are making waves in the snack food sector and will soon launch a campaign in Canada.

For Walter, a Willow Lake native, Sumseeds represent the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition.

“I always wanted to have my own brand,” he says, “When I was in my 20s, I wrote that down as a life goal on a piece of paper.”

Walter started out in the food industry exporting soybeans to Japan and other Asian countries that then used them to produce tofu and soy milk. Soy was a booming market in 2000, and Walter had his own brand of soy nuts at the time, but soy was then hit with bad publicity (undeserved, in Walter’s opi-nion), and that was one of the reasons he switched over to sunflower seeds.

His company has been selling Sumseeds locally sin-ce 2007. Business began with a splash that included endorsements from Major League Baseball Hall-of-Famer Tony Gwynn and several lower-circuit NASCAR drivers, both of which tied in nicely with two traditional sunflower consumer segments: baseball players and long-distance drivers.

Regular long-distance drivers, such as truckers, eat sun-flower seeds to help them stay awake; the act of crac-king the shell and removing the seed keeps the mind focused and alert. Construction workers also tend to consume significant amounts of sunflower seeds.

“Whenever there is a disaster, sunflower seed sales spike,” notes Walter. “And that’s how the idea came

about. We noticed that many of the people who eat sunflower seeds also consume energy drinks. And so it made sense to combine the two.”

Additionally, there are sunflower seed consumers who view the product as a snack, such as hikers and other outdoor lovers. “It’s a natural fit for a lot of activities,” says Walter.

But although the idea generated a lot of excitement early on, Walter admits, “It’s been a tough go. When we first started, people couldn’t believe there was such a thing. They thought it was a joke. When we first came out in ’07, we got a lot of press, but we tended to be grouped in with novelty items like ca-ffeinated soap. We weren’t too happy about that.”

However, whereas Walter has seen most of those no-velty items fall by the wayside, Sumseeds is still around.

“I think we were ahead of our time,” he says. “Now, six years later, there are other energy food items out there that people consider legitimate. We are still here and we are poised to make a big splash in 2013.”

Pagetto believes Sumseeds will have broad market appeal in Canada. Like in the U.S., he sees potential customers in sports such as baseball and industries such as trucking, but he also sees them catching on in other market segments.

“At my daughter’s soccer games, I see parents eating sunflower seeds on the sidelines,” he observes.

Sumseeds are sold in five flavors: Original Salted, Salt & Pepper, Honey BBQ, Dill Pickle and Ranch. All varieties are fortified with caffeine to keep the mind alert, taurine to alleviate muscle fatigue, lysine to help the body recover from injury, and Red Panax ginseng to improve circulation.

“Eating sunflower seeds while you’re playing ba-seball or softball is almost a sacred tradition. They say if you visit the dugouts after a Major League ball game, you’ll find a pile of shells a foot deep,” says Walter.

Dissecting The USDA Prospective Planting Report

FEATURE

22 IFTmag

By Charlie Higgins

By the time the USDA Prospective Plantings report is published in late March every year, most far-mers and traders have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Still, the report, which provides a sta-te-by-state breakdown of plan-ting expectations for each major commodity, serves as an impor-tant point of reference in the pul-se trading community.

This year’s report, released the last week of March, offered few big sur-prises. A greater than expected re-duction in lentil planting may have come as a surprise, though it’s too early to tell whether this will have a huge impact on the market. If Ca-nadian growers reduce acreage by a similar amount, prices and pro-duction should bounce back up the following year.

The annual report reveals few major changes, though

two of the major pulse classes will reduce planting

significantly this year.

FEATURE

24 IFTmag

Dry edible beans are one of the two major pulse groups expected to drop in acreage this year. The USDA predicts growers will plant a total 1.5 million acres on U.S. soil this year, down 242,500 acres or 14 percent from last year. However, this year’s figu-re is still more than that of 2011 (1,217,900 acres).Most states can expect to see a decrease in dry bean

planted area, the only exceptions being New Mexico, which will plant 200 more acres than last year, and South Dakota and Washington, which will maintain planted areas from 2012. North Dakota, the nation’s largest producer of dry beans, is expected to plant 150,000 fewer acres in 2013, down 21 percent from last year. The USDA predicts Minnesota, the nation’s

Dry Beans

The USDA predicts total acreage for chickpeas will in-crease this year by about 3 percent, from 207,900 acres to 214,300 acres. This represents a huge jump from 2011, in which just 135,800 acres were planted. Steady prices and growing hummus consumption are two of the main factors driving farmers to plant garbanzos.

Chickpea acreage in Washington, the nation’s top pro-ducer, has nearly doubled since 2011 and is expected to jump 13 percent this year. Oregon will likely see its

acreage increase to 2,500 from 1,800, while chickpea acreage is expected to drop in Idaho and California, 76,000 to 73,000 and 11,100 to 10,800 respectively.

Todd Scholz of the U.S. Dry Pea and Lentil Council says despite the downsides of chickpeas—their seeds are expensive, they are harvested later and they are more prone to disease than other pulses—growers have come to consider them a particularly lucrative crop in recent years.

Chickpeas

“It’s a little more expensive and a little more risky crop, but it has returned an incredible amount of money over the last two or three years for our farmers in Washington and Idaho, so they’re expanding their production,” Scholz told Capital Press.

FEATURE

26 IFTmag

The pulse crop predicted to see the biggest drop in 2013 is lentils. The USDA expects acreage to fall from 463,000 to 335,000, a decrease of 28 percent. All of the main growing states—Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and Washington—will reduce planting this year. Montana, the country’s top producer, will re-duce its planting by 41 percent, which is more than any other state surveyed.

Most industry members expected lentil acreage to be down this year, though the extent of the decrea-se may have come as a surprise to some. Scholz at-tributes the change to a growing shift from lentils to

dry peas among U.S. growers. However, such a sig-nificant decline in production could also bring len-til prices back up to desirable levels, in which case 2014 would likely see lentil acreage recover.

Canada, the world’s top exporter of lentils, will be watching to see how things pan out in the U.S. mar-ket, which is mostly comprised of green lentils. If Canadian growers also decrease their green lentil planting area, prices will likely bounce back to whe-re they were a few years back. Their own StatsCan seeding intentions report is always a good indicator of where the trend is heading.

Lentils

“Most of this is about which crop has the best price,” Scholz told Capital Press. “There’s kind of a set num-ber of acres of pulse crops (in the Pacific Northwest) and they distribute themselves naturally among peas, lentils and chickpeas, based on prices, but it always comes to about the same total number.”

Dry edible pea acreage will be up about 31 percent, from 649,000 to 850,000 acres, according to the USDA’s report. This represents a full recovery of planted acrea-ge between 2005 and 2010, and we’re now looking at a level which is 21 percent above the average over the past five years. Total acreage for dry peas has risen steadily since 2011’s level of 362,000 acres.

Three of the top producing states—Montana, North Dakota and Idaho—are expected to plant more peas this year, representing increases of 35, 36, and 30 per-cent respectively. Washington will maintain its acrea-

ge from last year at 65,000. The rapid growth of pea acreage in the United States, which exports around 70 percent of its production, has lead to heightened com-petition with the Canadian market. U.S. pea production is considerably smaller than Canada’s, but it is enough to affect markets, particularly in the case of green peas, which comprise about 45 percent of U.S. production.

Australia winter peas, a specialty crop mostly grown in Idaho, Montana and Oregon, will maintain its acreage from last year at 19,000. Acreage is up in Oregon and Idaho but fell by 9 percent in Montana.

Peas

FEATURE

By Dr. Randall Fairman

Export opportunities for high quality sunflower seeds are clearly having an impact on the Chinese sun-flower market. Figure 1 shows some of the major world markets for sunflower seeds. These opportunities do not come to the Chinese without a cost.

In recent years the Chinese sunflower industry has been increasingly affected by western technology as it strives to compete in this world market. In December 2010, a Chinese sunflower industry report stated that more than 60 percent of the sunflower seeds planted in China were grown from American seeds. At that time there was significant concern that foreign seeds were creating an excessive dependence on foreign markets.

As shown in Figure 1, China sunflower seed exports over the last few years have averaged very close to 15,000 metric tons per month. Over the last three years, the quantity of seeds exported by the end of February has been a very good indicator of the total exports for the year. With this in mind the 2013 export numbers to date are well below those of 2011 and 2012. If the historical pattern holds true then the total exports of sunflower seeds for China this year will come in at 15 percent lower than last year with a total of 158,000 tons.

The report stated that American sunflower seeds produced better quality, consistent size, good appearan-ce and larger output than their Chinese counterparts. The 2010 article seemed to conclude that this path was unwise but there was no hope for a good solution on the horizon. Finally, the article mentioned that the price of the seeds from America was increasing rapidly and that this could be seen as a national food security issue.

In February 2013, an article appearing in a Chinese financial newspaper reported on the progress of Chinese sunflower seeds that have significantly improved yields on some of the fields in Inner Mongolia. According to this article, both the quality and the total yield of these new seeds have significantly improved above the American import brands being used on those same lands. This article reports that the increasing prices of imported seeds along with the need to have a specific hybrid for these Chinese regions have provided the impetus for a local company to develop two new seed varieties which consistently produce 450 kg per hecta-re more than the American seeds. It is said that the quality of the final product is the same as that produced by American seeds. These Chinese seeds are registered with all of the associated intellectual property rights and the future looks bright for their company.

As shown in Figure 2, Chinese sunflower seed export prices have risen by about 15 percent this year on high demand. It is expected that farmers will increase sunflower planting in 2013 based on current high pri-ces. It is anticipated that plantings in 2013 will be slightly higher than the levels in 2011 and 2012. Expected total exports in 2013-14 growing season to be 200,000 tons on recovery and higher prices.

Opportunities for China’s Improved Sunflowers

28 IFTmag

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