Government Intervention Supports U.S. Peas

WASHINGTON - Aug 31/04 - SNS -- Government intervention in field pea and lentil markets in the United States on account of the income security offered by the USDA's marketing loan program and relatively strong USDA food aid purchase demand combined to boost seeded area this year, suggests the USDA in its annual report on pulses.

Writing in the USDA'S Vegetables And Melons Yearbook, Gary Lucier and Andy Jerardo of the USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) said that for dry peas, strong yields in the upper Midwest outweighed low yields in the Pacific Northwest caused by heat and drought, leaving yields up from a year earlier.

As a result, U.S. dry pea production (excluding wrinkled seed peas) increased from a year earlier. According to industry data, all the increase was for dry green peas (up 27%), while output of yellow peas dropped 22%.

With prices remaining attractive, harvested area increased again for both dry peas and lentils in 2004. According to both USDA and industry estimates, 2004 dry pea planted area was up more than one-third while lentil area rose about one-fifth. With relatively favorable weather pointing toward average yields or better, production will likely be up for peas and lentils.

The new larger crops will be added to existing carryover stocks that USDA measured on June 1 for the first time (the crop year begins on July 1). The stocks report, which was initiated in support of the marketing loan program, indicated there were 571,000 cwt (100 pound units) of dry edible peas, 271,000 cwt of lentils, and 28,000 cwt of Austrian winter peas stored in all positions on June 1, 2004.

The preliminary 2003-04 season-average price for all dry edible peas fell 15% to $6.60 per cwt, while the average price for all lentils was estimated to have risen 15% to $16.40 per cwt. As a result, the value of U.S. dry pea and lentil production (excluding wrinkled seed peas but including Austrian winter peas) totaled $76 million in the 2003 season—up 8% from a year earlier. The 2003-04 lentil crop was valued at $40 million, up 12% from a year ago.