Pulse Canada is making one more push for chickpea producers to participate in a survey.
Director of Sustainability for Pulse Canada Denis Tremorin says at least 25 producers are needed and so far about half have filled it out.
This survey is about assessing the environmental impact chickpea production has in Canada, and Tremorin says it’s a continuation of other surveys done in the past few years on different pulse crops such as lentils, peas, fababeans, dry beans, and now chickpeas.
“We know that pulses have a really good environmental story but in the world of business that environmental story needs to be told in the world of data basically,” Tremorin said. “The purpose of (the survey) is to capture that data from the source – from farmers – and ensure we got good, real representative data of what farmers are doing to capture their current practices and tell the best story possible.”
The survey is available on the Pulse Canada website and takes about 20-30 minutes to complete. The kind of information Pulse Canada is looking for includes, but is not limited to, types of fertilizer and rates, types of pesticide being used, the number of passes in the field and types of passes, irrigation for chickpeas, and inter-cropping.
Tremorin admits farmers are “surveyed to death” but said there is a demand for this type of information from agri-businesses and the public and farmers are in a position “to satisfy that demand.”
“If we can capture data at the front-end then we alleviate the market from actually going into the marketplace for data again and again and again, they just basically position the survey results as a representative sample of Canadian production.” he added.
Once the data is compiled, he says work on a final report will begin with help from UBC researcher Dr. Nathan Pelletier. Tremorin expects the report to be released between October and December this year.
The survey is open until Sunday.