India: Import Duty on Pulses Revived

By Greg Simpson, Pres/CEO, Simpson Seeds Inc. A bumper Kharif pulse harvest has caused farm gate prices in India to drop dramatically and have prompted the Narendra Modi government to consider protecting farmers from falling prices by imposing duties. Pulse prices have fallen as much as 20% below the minimum [...]

Red Lentil Market Not Red Hot

By Greg Simpson, Pres/CEO, Simpson Seeds Inc. Red hot prices experienced during the 2015/2016 crop year where caused by the drought reduced crop in Canada in 2015 and the crop failures of the Rabi harvest in India two year in a row. Growers responded by planting a record 4,360,000 acres [...]

Transportation: Supply Chain Disrupted

By Greg Simpson, Pres/CEO, Simpson Seeds Inc. Supply Chain Management is a key to successful business. Just ask farmers who are looking for delivery to grain terminals or process elevators. Or, the end of the supply chain ask a flour miller, a packager or food manufacturer how important it is [...]

Snow Slows Harvest 2016

By Greg Simpson, Pres/CEO, Simpson Seeds Inc. Snow in October is unusual but this is not the first nor will it be the last time we will experience snow in early October. For example, we had snow in the first week of October in 1996.  Check out this quote from [...]

Harvest Progressing Well: Lentils Mainly #2 and X3 Quality

By Greg Simpson, Pres/CEO, Simpson Seeds Inc. Farmers in the Moose Jaw area finally had several days of favorable harvest weather. The weather turned sunny and warm on Friday, August 27th which allowed the lentil harvest to resume with no weather delays for one full week. The weather forecast is [...]

India Sub-Continent Monsoon: Key to Red Lentil Price Support

By Greg Simpson, Pres/CEO, Simpson Seeds Inc. Monsoon season has arrived in India. Monsoon is a term first used in English in Briton Indian (now India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan) and neighbouring countries to refer to the big seasonal winds blowing from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the [...]

Early Start to Seeding 2016/2017 Crop

By Greg Simpson, Pres/CEO, Simpson Seeds Inc. Seeding is well underway. This year we started seeding on April 27th. This is one of the earliest starts to seeding in many years. The field conditions on our farm are excellent. The soil profile is saturated down 4 feet. It is always [...]

Pulse Markets: India Rabi Harvest 2016

By Greg Simpson, Pres/CEO, Simpson Seeds Inc. The lack of rain in the lentil production areas in India has stressed the growing conditions and yields are once again expected to meet expectations. However, there has been a glimmer of hope as the temperatures cooled somewhat and some much [...]