Pulse Pushes Farm Bill

Pulse Pushes Farm Bill. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Tim McGreevy, Executive Director of the USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council spent part of yesterday on Capital Hill as part of the Farm Bill Now group pushing Congress to get off their backsides and get this Food, Farms and Jobs bill done. Pulse crops have some very important parts in the proposed bill and McGreevy says they would help with not only childhood obesity but world hunger.

McGREEVY: These crops are going to be a solution to keeping people well fed and keeping the protein they need and the dietary fiber whether you have problems with obesity or you don’t have enough to eat in some of the developing countries, these crops really offer a great solution to that and we just have to put more emphasis on research to increase their productivity around the globe including here in the United States.

A recent study reported that in the future we would all need to become vegetarians due to the lack of water to produce livestock.

McGREEVY: I don’t know if we all are going to have to become vegetarians because in countries that have a landmass that can support animal agriculture, it’s a solution but in countries that don’t have that and they have rising populations, you’re going to have to turn towards inexpensive vegetable protein crops in order to fill the bellies and these pulse crops - peas, lentils, chickpeas and dry beans really offer a very inexpensive option.

A big plus is that pulse crops are actually very low water users.

McGREEVY: It only takes 43 gallons of water to produce a pound of pulse crops which come with all - you know the nutrient profile is pretty terrific. And so that’s compared to other crops and certainly compared to animal agriculture that is, it’s huge. It’s a very inexpensive crop to grow and on top of that it’s also a sustainable crop because it fixes its own nitrogen in the soil so you don’t have to fertilize it.

I recently ran across a recipe for baked chickpeas that are a wonderful snack.

McGREEVY: We are seeing an increasing demand for these chickpeas. We just sponsored a product development course and many of the major food companies joined us at this event and the theme of it really was how can we use these products in new ways. We are seeing a lot of interest in chickpeas and all pulse crops really.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.