Diplomatic row with Canada unlikely to impact India’s lentil imports

New Delhi: The diplomatic row with Canada is unlikely to impact lentil (masoor) requirements as India has diversified its imports of the pulse and is no longer heavily dependent on one country, said senior government officials and trade bodies.

Additionally, India fully exempted lentils imported from the US from any sort of customs duty recently.

“Most of the lentils from Canada are already here,” said a senior government official, adding that a significant amount of lentils have already been brought to India. Also, with US lentils permitted now, no supply issues are expected, the official said.

India is one of the primary importers of Canadian lentils with import of the pulse from the country touching 11 lakh tonnes of masoor dal in 2022-23.

However, trade bodies and analysts said India has diversified its import of lentils to other countries, reducing its heavy dependence on Canada. “Australia has surpassed Canada in terms of lentil imports this year,” said Rahul Chauhan, of agri commodity research firm, iGrain India.

India imported around 0.95 lakh tonnes of lentils from Canada during April-June period in 2023, the import of masoor from Australia stood at 1.99 lakh tonnes, said Chauhan. Russia, Singapore, Turkey, the UAE are others from where India imports lentils.