BY: Daryl Domitruk, Executive Director, MPSG
Farmers and agronomists generally agree diversity is a good thing – especially when it describes crop rotations, input suppliers, delivery options and the like. On the downside, diversity can make farm management more complicated.
Each of the featured articles in Pulse Beat’s 100th edition aid in the successful inclusion of pulses and/or soybeans in the farm enterprise. In the background is the hope that these specific successes propel farms to be more profitable and resilient. The magazine has continuously evolved to meet the needs of readers who embrace the benefits and face the complications of strategically managing an array of unique crops.
Back in the day, the bread and butter of the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers was dry beans. Pulse Beat, at the time, was correspondingly heavy on dry beans. But even then, the magazine (initially in newsletter format) established itself as a forum where facts about peas, lentils, faba beans and even chickpeas were also explained in ink. By the 2010’s stories about soybean became the focus.
The single reason for Pulse Beat to carve out this turf was to fuel farmers’ ongoing desire to diversify their income.
Today the demand is to again simplify crop production, especially on larger farms. Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers (MPSG) and Pulse Beat will continue to move with the times, recognizing that pulses and soybeans hold a regular spot in some rotations while in others they’re planted on an opportunistic or experimental basis. In a cereal and canola dominated business we know diversity in sowing and harvest dates provided by dry beans, peas and soybeans can lead to more efficient use of land, labour, time and equipment. We note the expanding area of corn production is also enabling these same outcomes for a broad cross-section of farmers. Ironically, the bit of added complexity that comes with each unique crop leads to simplifying some of the larger resource allocation challenges.
Moving forward, Pulse Beat intends to emulate our members by embracing diversity. There’s much to explore with the crops in MPSG’s mandate. Our research program, which is today’s bread and butter, is exploring all sorts of opportunities to introduce and expand faba bean, lupin and adzuki bean with more species on the horizon. And we intend to support opportunities at the regional level to diversify into a greater range of annual legume crops. Topping the list are food type soybean, dry beans in western Manitoba and faba bean. We don’t have to grow hundreds of thousands of acres to claim success, provided the acres farmers do plant deliver on the goal of profit from diversity. And for as long as readers desire, we will use Pulse Beat as a medium to quench farmers’ thirst for knowledge about diversification options.