Cheering for a Canadian industry is not something we as Canadians do often; we are usually far too modest for that. But we need to park that modesty for now. Especially when it comes to Canadian pulses.
Despite a very dry summer, pulse growers are flourishing, feeding the planet, and contributing to our collective wealth, health, and prosperity.
Our thriving pulse sector deserves some love.
At $5 billion in exports, Canada is the world’s largest producers of peas and lentils and one of the top exporters of beans and chickpeas! Like many of Canada’s agri-food products, we export over 80 per cent of what we grow to more than 150 countries worldwide.
Top markets include the U.S., China, India, Turkey, and Bangladesh.
Talk about a Canadian success story!
You may be asking: “Okay, but what are pulses?”
According to Pulse Canada, pulses are edible seeds from the legume family. The word itself comes from the latin word puls meaning “thick soup.” The main types of pulses grown in Canada are dry peas, lentils, chickpeas, and beans.
People eat them all over the world and that puts Canada at the cutting edge of supporting plant proteins.
Saskatchewan dominates the production of pulses – growing over half of all production in Canada.
(GO Prairies GO!)
Regardless of where we live, Canadians can and should be proud of the fact that our pulse producers are feeding the world.
In fact, let’s embrace Canadian pulses – just as people around the world are embracing them.