During a recent Soy Canada webinar, industry representatives pointed to a roughly 70-cent-per-bushel difference between western Canadian soybeans and comparable U.S. supplies moving through Pacific Northwest export channels.

WHY IT MATTERS: Getting paid closer to full value for soybeans could make a meaningful difference to farm profitability.

In some cases, that gap shows up in stark terms and underlines its arbitrary nature.

Brian Innes, Soy Canada’s executive director, pointed to one producer farming on both sides of the Manitoba–North Dakota border who sees markedly different prices for soybeans grown only a short distance apart.

The determining factor is simply which side of the international boundary they are sold. That gap has become part of the industry’s broader argument that Canadian soybeans are not always being valued for what they are actually worth.

What’s behind the gap?

Much of the difference in price is said to be linked to protein.

Innes said western Canadian soybeans have long faced a reputation for lower and less stable protein than competing supplies. That affects how buyers view the crop before it ever reaches a vessel.

Soy Canada makes the case for looking at overall performance, rather than just one marker.

Lesley Nernberg, an animal nutritionist with Lighthouse Agri-Solutions, told webinar participants that crude protein, while still the main benchmark used in the market, does not tell the whole story when it comes to feed value.

“The difference between how nutritionists and purchasers think is potentially leaving a lot of money on the table for Canadian growers and processors,” he said.

Purchasers tend to focus on crude protein, moisture and other straightforward specs. Animal nutritionists, by contrast, are looking more closely at amino acids and energy — the components that determine how well a feed ingredient actually performs in a ration.

Nernberg argued those deeper measures can matter as much as protein. He pointed to U.S. and international work showing that amino acid availability, digestibility and sucrose levels can be attractive to customers.

“These start to create cost advantages for feed millers,” he said, adding northern-grown soybeans may offer nutritional benefits that are not being fully recognized.

Research is suggesting Canadian soybean meal may be more competitive on those deeper nutritional measures than systems based on crude protein alone indicate, said Nernberg. If that holds, not only is crude protein is an incomplete measure of value, but the market may be pricing Canadian soybeans on one measure, while end users are deriving value from another.

The challenge is getting the market to reflect that value.

Can better data close the gap?

Canada has far less publicly available compositional data on soybean meal than competitors such as the U.S., Brazil and Argentina. That means fewer Canadian comparisons in the literature and fewer tools to help buyers look past a simple protein number.

Innes said that is part of what Soy Canada is trying to address.

In a followup interview, he said there are really two parts to the issue. One is the actual quality and consistency of soybeans being delivered over time. The other is how the value of those soybeans is measured and understood in the market.

In other words, some of the discount comes from the reputation western Canadian soybeans have built over time. Some of it also comes from the fact that Canada has a thinner dataset to show what those beans are worth beyond crude protein.

That is why Soy Canada sees better data as part of the solution.

The organization itself does not directly fund research, but Innes said Canadian groups are building out Prairie-specific data, drawing in part on similar research in the northern U.S. Soy Canada has been working to connect different parts of the value chain and identify where new information could be most useful.

Innes pointed to the role of Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers, among others, in supporting work that could help better define the value of Canadian soybeans and communicate that to export customers.

Better data will not erase the price gap on its own, he said, but it could help ensure Canadian soybeans are being valued more accurately.

What it means on the farm

For farmers, the more immediate question is what that kind of gap means on the ground.

Darren Bond, a farm business management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, said the difference is far from trivial.

At typical Prairie soybean yields, a 70-cent-per-bushel price gap works out to roughly $30 an acre.

“That’s definitely nothing to sneeze at,” Bond said.

In Manitoba’s latest cost-of-production guide, soybeans were the only major crop projected to show a positive return when fully costed, at roughly $2 an acre.

Add another $30 an acre on top of that, Bond said, and the picture changes quickly.

“That $30 an acre is pure profit.”

Bond said soybeans already benefit from lower fertilizer costs than crops like wheat or canola because they typically require little or no nitrogen. That has been one of the biggest reasons they looked more attractive this year. Higher yields, stronger genetics and better management have also helped improve the crop’s economics in Manitoba.

A better price would only add to that advantage.

Would that mean a major jump in acres? Possibly.

A stronger price signal would clearly improve the crop’s competitiveness, especially in a province where soybeans have already become an important part of the farm business mix. But Bond said there are other considerations, including freight, weather, rotation and market access. He also noted western Canadian soybeans are still relatively new in the broader market sense. Many Manitoba growers have only been producing them for 15 to 20 years, which means the crop still lacks some of the long track record and market familiarity seen in longer-established U.S. growing regions.

That relative newness feeds back into the same problem Nernberg identified: fewer years of data, fewer established expectations and fewer tools to show buyers what Canadian soybeans can deliver.

For Soy Canada, that is where the opportunity lies.

“The goal is to narrow the gap between the actual value for the animal and what customers perceive that value to be,” said Innes.

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The projects, located near the Red River on the U.S. side, has drawn the scrutiny of the International Joint Commission (IJC) following pressure from Manitoba’s environment minister, the province announced on Oct. 9.

The operations in question are Abercrombie Dairy, which will be a 12,500-head milking operation near Wahpeton, south of Fargo, and Herberg Dairy, a 25,000-head operation slated near Hillsboro, north of Fargo. The projects got permits to start construction in January 2025. Both are owned by Riverview LLP, a Minnesota-based dairy agribusiness.

Those dairy mega-projects could add more nutrients to an already struggling Lake Winnipeg downstream, according to Mike Moyes, Manitoba’s environment and climate change minister.

“We’re happy that the IJC was referred and that they’re looking at it (and) going through that process,” Moyes said. “Obviously, we want to move as quickly as possible. This is a major operation, and we want to make sure that all the different dairies, including those in North Dakota, are taking this seriously and doing everything they can to mitigate any nutrients that potentially could go into the waterways.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Manitoba is pushing for an international review of two massive North Dakota dairy operations that it worries could dump well over targeted phosphorus levels into Lake Winnipeg.

According to the province, the International Joint Commission has told its offshoot, the International Red River Watershed Board (IRRWB), to look at permits and information related to the dairy projects. The board will assess whether the projects properly considered impacts on water quality and aquatic ecosystems at the international boundary, particularly regarding nutrient targets for the Red River.

The Red River contributes only about 15 per cent of total water flow into Lake Winnipeg. A late 2024 provincial report on nutrient targets, however, reported that it carries the largest load of nutrients into the lake out of all the water body’s major tributaries.

“The health of Manitoba’s lakes and rivers is a top priority for our government, and we want to be sure that developments upstream don’t negatively affect Lake Winnipeg and the Red River,” Moyes said. “We are working with partners upstream and taking action at home to ensure developments address the risk of sending even more algae-causing nutrients into Lake Winnipeg. We must protect Lake Winnipeg for generations to come.”

Water nutrient levels have been a loaded issue in Manitoba. Animal agriculture, the pork industry in particular, has taken significant public heat over the issue. The sector, in turn, has repeatedly pointed to improvements in their sector, such as better manure management. Fertilizer runoff in the grain sector has been another investigated source.

Local agriculture, meanwhile, strongly contests that blame, with arguments pointing fingers at the City of Winnipeg and incidences of sewage flowing into the river following major rain events, or to nutrient sources coming in from further south.

Operations would quadruple North Dakota herd

The two North Dakota facilities will add 37,500 milking cows to the state, more than quadrupling the current herd of about 8,900 cows and nearly matching Manitoba’s entire provincial herd of roughly 45,000 cows across 240 farms, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) said in a post May 25.

The operations are located within 1.5 miles of the Red River or its tributaries. The Manitoba Eco-Network said on its website that waste from the operations will be stored in lagoons covering an area equivalent to 52 Canadian football fields, with no municipal wastewater treatment. The manure slurry will be spread on agricultural fields as fertilizer.

“Our concern about this operation is just the sheer amount of dairy cows this close to the watershed,” Moyes said. “We’re talking about tens of thousands of dairy cows about a mile away.”

The CCPA has echoed Manitoba’s concerns that excess manure application could lead to accumulation of phosphorus and nitrogen in rivers and lakes, which feed blue-green algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg. They also said that pollution from the operations could contain antibiotics, hormones, bacteria and heavy metals.

Moyes was clear that the government’s concerns are not anti-agriculture.

“We recognize the importance that agriculture plays in in our economy, in our world and especially in water management,” he said. “We stand with farmers. We stand with all the producers, but it needs to be done in the right way.”

The Manitoba Eco-Network, along with the Save Lake Winnipeg Project and Animal Justice, called on both federal and provincial governments to refer the issue to the IJC.

Moyes is also encouraging concerned citizens to get involved.

“We’re trying to really raise that alarm bell that this is a concern for our water, that mitigation measures have to be taken for these mega dairy farms, and so any Manitoban out there, if they’re concerned, reach out to your to your local MLA and try to let them know how important this is.”

Phosphorus levels over target

In late 2022, the governments of Canada and the U.S. approved a nutrient loading goal for the Red River of 1,400 tons of phosphorus and 9,525 tons of nitrogen per year, based on recommendations made by the IJC.

That phosphorus target is a reduction of about 45 per cent from current levels, according to the Manitoba Eco-Network. The CCPA said that Manitoba’s 2024 nutrient report shows an average of 2,500 tonnes of phosphorus per year flowing from the U.S. through the Red River through 2023.

Manitoba, meanwhile, set its own nutrient reduction targets for Lake Winnipeg late last year, broken down by tributary. The goal for the Red River, in that plan, was a loading target of 2,800 tonnes per year of phosphorus and 19,050 tonnes of nitrogen, as measured at Selkirk.

Nutrients from multiple sources

Previous studies have suggested that about half the nutrients in Lake Winnipeg come from within Manitoba, with the rest flowing in from upstream areas such as Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, North Dakota, Minnesota, and small areas of South Dakota and Montana. The Winnipeg, Saskatchewan and Dauphin rivers also contribute significant amounts of nutrients and water flow to the lake, the Manitoba government’s December 2024 report said.

The province is taking a holistic approach to water management, bringing on a new advisory board for Lake Winnipeg and working with other stakeholders like nearby municipalities and the City of Winnipeg, Moyes said.

“We’re trying to protect more nature and wetlands and peat…and we want to work with with agriculture. We want to work with with everyday farmers on their operations to make sure they’re that they’re as efficient as possible.”

Moyes wrote to the IRRWB in June, then followed up with letters to North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong and Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand. He asked them to support the IJC’s work and act on any recommendations that come out of the review.

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Crop scouts estimated the average hard red spring wheat yield at 53.7 bushels per acre, up from 45.7 bushels in the same area last year. The five-year average for this part of the state is 40.02 bushels, excluding 2020 when no tour was held because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grain traders, millers and exporters are monitoring conditions of hard red spring wheat, used in pizza crusts and bagels. Major wheat-growing areas in the Black Sea have suffered from drought, though improving yield forecasts from the region’s ongoing harvest have weighed on futures prices.

Scouts admired lush fields in the northern regions of North Dakota that are expected to produce high yields. North Dakota is the top producer of spring wheat, the second of two wheat harvests in the United States.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I don’t ever remember the crops being this uniformly good all over the state,” Dave Green, executive vice president of the Wheat Quality Council, said.

Many groups noted prevalence of fusarium head blight, also known as scab, which can cause vomiting in animals and humans if present in high enough quantities.

Grains that test positive for vomitoxin, the toxin produced by the fusarium fungus, are often sold to millers for a heavy discount.

“Most of us aren’t sure if scab is going to be a huge problem,” Green said.

Scouts on the first day of the tour also forecast the highest yields on record in southern and east-central North Dakota.

The tour will assess fields in northeast North Dakota on Thursday before releasing a final state yield estimate.

When asked why yields set records, farmer Bill Ongstad answered with one word: “Rain.”

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“The whole world is a little short of beans this year,” said Mitch Coulter, executive director of the Northarvest Bean Growers Association in Fargo, N.D..

He noted Mexico was already buying heavily from the U.S. and Canada, while Argentina, normally a competitor with North American beans, had troubles with its crop.

About 70 per cent of the edible beans grown in Minnesota are irrigated, “and those acres were really good,” Coulter said.

However, on the North Dakota side, “it’s variable… if we got the rains, those beans were average to slightly above average, while in other zones where we missed the rains, we had a poor crop.”

In North Dakota, producers primarily grow pinto and black beans, while kidney and navy beans are more prominent in Minnesota, according to Coulter. He described the pinto and black beans as average in terms of quality, while “the kidney beans were supreme — they really came out nice this year.”

From a marketing standpoint, Coulter expected to see strong prices going forward, with some buyers already contracting for next year’s crop. As a result, he anticipated picking up some more acres for edible beans in 2024.

U.S. farmers grew 1.02 million tonnes of edible beans in 2023-24, which was down from the 1.17 million tonnes grown the previous year due to a combination of smaller yields and reduced acres, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. North Dakota, the largest edible-bean-growing state, saw production down by roughly 22 per cent on the year at 365,500 tonnes.

Canada grew 276,600 tonnes of edible beans in 2023-24, according to Statistics Canada data, which would be down by 36,000 tonnes from the previous year and the smallest production since 2016.

Pinto beans in North Dakota are currently trading around 35 to 36 U.S. cents/lb., according to Prairie Ag Hotwire data, with black beans topping out at 40 and navies at 30. Kidney beans were bid at roughly 41 cents/lb.

In Manitoba, pinto beans delivered to the elevator were trading as high as 52.5 cents/lb., with navy beans at 53-56 cents, black beans at 57.3-60.3 and kidney beans in the 50-54 cents/lb. area.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.

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Concord — a brand owned since 2021 by an arm of Swedish seeding, planting and tillage equipment firm Väderstad — will no longer be sold under the Concord name, the company said in a statement Thursday.

A “selection” of Concord’s products and design elements will be incorporated into the Väderstad-branded air seeder lineup “in the near future,” the company said.

“We’re proud of Concord’s rich history, but the future is even more exciting,” Vaderstad’s vice-president of sales and marketing for North America, Jason Strobbe, said in the company’s statement.

“Concord customers and dealers have much to look forward to, including the reintroduction of some popular products — just under a different brand.”

The parent firm and its dealer network will continue to provide parts and service for past Concord customers, Väderstad said.

The Concord name dates back to 1977, when Howard and Brian Dahl — members of North Dakota’s ag equipment-making Melroe family — founded Concord, Inc. to make and sell air seeding equipment into the North American market.

The Concord business was sold to Case Corp. (now part of CNH Industrial) in 1996, while Concord assets and staff not included in that deal went to form a new company, Amity Technology.

Amity in 2011 formed a joint-venture company with ag equipment firm Agco, and Agco-Amity JV’s Amity Seeding arm revived the Concord brand in 2019. The joint venture was sold to Väderstad in 2021 and as a result its Concord, Amity, Wil-Rich and Wishek brands became part of North Dakota-based Väderstad, Inc.

Väderstad, whose other product lines include the Canadian-made Seed Hawk air drill brand it acquired in 2013, said it has since “gradually” gone through the process of integrating the Concord brand into the Väderstad product line.

After the Agco-Amity acquisition, Väderstad said it would “continue to innovate and provide the high-quality products and levels of service and support that the Concord name has been known for, in the quest to be the world’s leading partner for an outstanding emergence.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Wheat Quality Council tour predicted an average yield of 47.4 bushels per acre, compared to the average 40.1 bushels and the 2022 tour’s estimate for 49.1 bushels.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is projecting North Dakota’s spring wheat yield at 47 bu./acre, down from 50 last year.

Grain traders are monitoring conditions of spring wheat, used in foods ranging from pizza crusts to bagels or blended with lower quality flour, after Russia ignited global supply concerns by quitting the deal that allowed safe Ukrainian crop exports from Black Sea ports. Other major shippers are suffering from drought.

On North Dakota farms, the worsened dryness follows cold, wet weather that delayed spring planting in some areas. Drought Monitor data issued July 27 showed 44 per cent of the state’s spring wheat was in drought areas as of two days prior, up from 32 per cent a week earlier and 24 per cent two weeks before.

“I’m surprised the yields are as high as they are,” said Randy Martinson, president of Martinson Ag Risk Management in Fargo, N.D. “I do think there are going to be some lower yields if we don’t see some follow up rains.”

North Dakota will probably continue to receive lighter-than-normal rainfall, though most crop damage from dryness is likely already factored into estimates, said Drew Lerner, president of forecaster World Weather Inc.

“We’re just not going to have the moisture that everyone wants,” he said.

U.S. millers and bakers have hoped for a good crop to offset harvest losses from drought in the southern Great Plains hard red winter wheat belt.

“This is a year when we need the wheat,” Dave Green, Wheat Quality Council executive vice-president, said on a webcast. “It looks like we’re on the edge of skating through another narrow doorway to get another good crop that’s planted late.”

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“It does not look really good at the moment. We are going to see below normal rainfall and warmer than normal temperatures during that time period,” Lerner said, noting there’s to be one major rain event midway through the week of July 17 over what he called “a moisture-stressed environment.”

The problem on the Prairies is the last several weeks, he said, is that “there’s been no moisture feed into the region. The storm will be big for western Alberta and northern Alberta. But as that storm system moves across the heart of Prairies…it’s going to run through a lot of dry air. By the time it gets to the east side of Saskatchewan, it’s going to be falling apart.”

Lerner forecast warm temperatures in the leading up to the storm and then after the storm there’s to a ridge of high pressure for several days afterward.

“We will lose all of that moisture in a day or two,” he said.

Lerner added there will likely not be any other major storms passing through the Prairies for the rest of July, but only series of scattered showers at best.

“From a spring wheat and canola perspective, it doesn’t look good,” he said.

The U.S. northern Plains were in much the same boat, particularly Montana, North Dakota and the northwestern area of South Dakota, according to Lerner. However, conditions were not as bad for the eastern half of South Dakota and a good portion of Minnesota.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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“Guys just started rolling here on [May 14 and 15] fairly heavy. There was a little rain system we had that put a damper in things last week,” Lilja said.

He said that it’s common for North Dakota farmers to switch from corn under such circumstance as it takes much longer to grow than soybeans, noting that sunflowers can often be another alternative to corn.

Prior to the start of spring planting, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated North Dakota farmers would plant 3.75 million acres of corn, up from last year’s 2.95 million. Soybean acres are to be 6.55 million, bettering last year’s 5.7 million. Total oil/confection sunflower acres were projected to be 659,000 acres compared to 717,000 a year ago.

In USDA’s weekly crop progress report, only five per cent of the corn in the state had been planted as of May 14. That was far below the five-year average of 26 per cent complete.

Also, USDA said two per cent of North Dakota’s soybeans had been seeded, behind the average of 15 per cent done. Sunflowers had yet to register in the department’s report, where the pace should be three per cent.

Among the state’s other crops, oats were 11 per cent planted compared to the five-year average of 40 per cent complete. Spring wheat was two per cent in the ground versus the average of 12 per cent.

Lilja noted Wednesday marked a “tough day in the markets” — one reason being the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative that allows Ukraine to export its grain through its ports. The United Nations and Turkey brokered a 60-day extension to the deal that had been set to expire Thursday.

Also, Lilja pointed to China cancelling its purchase of 272,000 of old-crop U.S. corn. Combined with concerns over the U.S. government debt ceiling, the commodity markets had a bearish tone.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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In terms of human lives saved, it’s had a greater impact than all innovations produced by medical science put together.

“It’s sort of entertaining,” he said. “It depends on how you put the numbers together but, in truth, half of the world is actually fed by synthetic fertilizer.”

Why it matters: Work in North Dakota could expand soil testing beyond chemistry to include soil biology, helping farmers make better decisions on a field by field basis.

Synthetic fertilizers are an extension of a relationship dating back to the Archean Eon (between 4,000 and 2,500 million years ago) when the first simple microbes learned to crack atmospheric nitrogen and fix it to hydrogen.

This early skill enabled them to manufacture protein and made all life on Earth possible, and mankind created an agricultural revolution when it learned how to fix nitrogen synthetically.

“Now, the problem is that they’re getting really expensive, probably the most expensive input for a lot of farmers,” Geddes said.

There is a host of factors attached to the cost of nitrogen, from environmental demands to world politics and domestic government policies.

There is also the Canadian government’s plan to reduce nitrogen fertilizer emissions as measured in 2020 by 30 per cent by the end of the decade. Farmers are being pushed to find new approaches for nitrogen management, while maintaining enough supply of fixed nitrogen to keep up production.

In the North Dakota research program, legumes and their ability to convert atmospheric nitrogen into usable nutrient through root nodules are the cornerstone of one approach. More specifically, it’s all about the rhizobia bacteria that make fixing nitrogen possible.

Geddes and his lab team are taking a detailed look at legume rhizobia bacteria, in the hope they can learn how to use them more effectively.

“The agronomic outputs from our programs focus on two major questions,” he said. “One is, can we guide farmers on when they can inoculate their fields and when can they expect to see benefits from inoculation? The second is, can we improve on the technology that’s out there? Can we actually maximize the benefits we get from inoculation?”

The problem is that crop inoculants don’t come in a one-size-fits-all package. Each crop demands a specific species of rhizobia and they’re not cross compatible. Soybean, for example, associates with Bradyrhizobium bacteria, compared with chickpeas, which need Mesorhizobium.

The relationships are unique enough that Geddes said each must be studied on its own.

Lingering populations

A commercial inoculant delivers the right rhizobium for the right crop, but since that product is a living organism, how long does a sustainable population last after a crop of soybean? Do farmers need to inoculate again?

“Different people have different responses for different reasons,” Geddes noted. “Some people would say you should always inoculate.”

It is “cheap insurance,” he added, particularly compared to the cost of fertilizer.

Studies done at the Carrington Research Extension Centre in North Dakota’s Red River Valley show that a field inoculation can last up to five years. Another inoculation may not deliver a yield boost because there is already a residual population of rhizobia in the soil.

Environmental factors also have roles.

“Events like drought or flooding are hard for rhizobia and can deplete their populations,” Geddes said. “Soil conditions like acidic pH or salinity are also challenging for establishing symbiosis between the host and symbiont.”

Iron deficiency chlorosis in soybeans also seems to disrupt the symbiosis and may slow nodule growth.

A plant will also avoid burning its own energy to build nodules if it doesn’t need to, such as when soil nitrogen is already high.

A biological test to determine the right bacteria and how much of it is in the field would therefore be helpful to farmers’ planning.

Could the industry move past basic chemical soil testing and take it into the realm of biological analysis? Could it use a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test, similar to what is used for COVID-19, that would allow a small genetic sample to be amplified and analyzed?

“We’ve kind of jumped back in and really pushed this technology to develop an assay where we can quantify the number of rhizobia in a given field sample,” Geddes said. “The idea is farmers could send the same soil in for soil tests chemically and we could provide them with information about how many rhizobia are present in their fields.”

The test actually looks for DNA from the target rhizobia and, based on the amount of DNA, population can be deduced.

Geddes is also looking for the break point, or the population needed before more inoculant is a waste of money. Greenhouse tests have shown that plants stopped responding to inoculant applications at around 1,000 rhizobia per gram for soybean.

“We’re now moving towards field trials to get a more accurate sense of what the breakpoints are and where we can expect to see responses from inoculation,” he said.

If the work bears fruit, it could save farmers the cost and trouble of unnecessary inoculation and could make it easier and more predictable to grow legumes.

It will not be a complete replacement for synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, but it could be a valuable tool for producers facing a new landscape on nutrient management.

“I think we have to acknowledge that the use of synthetic nitrogen may be restricted in the future so we may not always be able to rely on having it to maximize our yields going forward,” Geddes said.

“What we’re thinking about is precision agriculture and building on this precision agriculture revolution. The new wave coming forward is incorporating soil biology information into precision agriculture.”

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Besides the turning of the calendar New Year, Lechler said the upcoming Chinese New Year has slowed export demand for yellow and green peas. He noted celebrations go on for up to two and half weeks, which generates a lack of sales and in turn weighs on prices.

“Yellows were still at [$11 per bushel]. We were up as far as $11.25 in December. We were at $10.40 on the green peas, and we are down to $10.25 right now,” Lechler said (figures in US$ except where noted).

“A lot of the export market on pea stuff hinges on the Asian market,” he said, adding that domestic sales have weakened as well, due to slow movement around New Year’s.

“Domestically, we have seen a lot of the government sales pushed out toward March,” Lechler said.

As of Monday yellow pea prices in North Dakota dropped 25 cents/bu. over the last week and were sitting at $8.50 to $11, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire. Green peas garnered the same prices but have remained steady over the same period of time. Converted into Canadian dollars, that works out to C$11.38-$14.72/bu. for yellows and greens.

In comparison to western Canadian prices, Prairie Ag Hotwire said yellow peas were C$11.50-$12/bu., having dipped four Canadian cents on the week. Green peas on the other hand gained 20 Canadian cents and were sitting at C$13-$13.50 bu.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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