Chickpea quotes held for another week as the harvest finished, and the official outlook nudged its price forecast up rather than down.
- Saskatchewan's desi and kabuli chickpea quotes have not changed since late September.
- The harvest is finished and supply is large, yet the official price outlook rose slightly.
- A change in the quotes as farmers start selling the new crop would show whether that supply is weighing on prices.
Chickpea prices did not move this week in the only quotes available. Saskatchewan's October 14 quote put desi chickpeas at C$573.20 a tonne and 9 mm kabuli at C$638.24, both unchanged since late September, and its October 21 quote, published after the week, was the same. Desi is about 17 per cent above last year and kabuli about 5 per cent below. Kabuli is below its level at this date in all of the past five years; desi sits in the middle, above 2021-22 and last year but below the other three years. Chickpeas have no futures market and no weekly elevator bids on the page, and no market report for the week discussed chickpea prices, so there is no price move to explain.Charts: Exhibit 5, Exhibit 6
The harvest is now finished. Saskatchewan and Alberta both reported chickpeas fully harvested by October 20. Statistics Canada's model puts the crop at about 400,000 tonnes, smaller than last year but 72 per cent above the five-year average. It adds to stocks of 236,000 tonnes at July 31, far above last year's.Charts: Exhibit 7, Exhibit 8, Exhibit 9
The new information came from the official outlook. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's October 20 report, released after the week ended, raised its forecast of the average chickpea price for 2026-27 by C$15 to C$465 a tonne, after cutting it by C$50 in September. It left its forecasts of production, exports and ending stocks unchanged. So the official view of prices firmed slightly instead of weakening, though the forecast is still below where it stood over the summer.Charts: Exhibit 12
The elevator figures say little about this market. Licensed country elevators hold only a small part of the crop, so their flows cover a small share of chickpea trade. Deliveries to them and shipments out of them were both above the five-year range for the week, but the volumes are a few thousand tonnes. With the crop now in the bin, the next quotes will show whether farm selling of a large supply starts to move prices.Charts: Exhibit 2