Prairie Field Peas: Record Crop, Broken Markets, and a Trade Lifeline

Canada harvested a record-setting dry pea crop in 2025, pushing output to 3.93 million tonnes — a 31.6 per cent jump over 2024 and well above any previous benchmark. The headline number would ordinarily be cause for optimism. Instead, Prairie pea growers spent most of the crop year managing a market in freefall, caught between a Chinese 100 per cent tariff that shut off their largest traditional buyer almost overnight and an Indian duty-free window that expired before the oversupply could clear. By spring 2026, a preliminary Canada-China trade agreement had removed the pea tariff, but the sector is still working through record carry-out stocks and structurally lower prices that will shape acres and contracts heading into 2026-27.