III: Lentil

The world's second-largest grower of lentils is India. This shouldn't be a surprise as lentils form the backbone of many Indian dishes and lentils have been farmed there for millennia. But the world's largest grower of lentils is ... Canada? Surprisingly, the breadbasket of Canada in Saskatchewan has ideal growing conditions for pulse vegetables, and it also had a problem: barley and wheat prices started to plummet about 50 years ago. In order to diverse the province's exports and also grow something that replenishes fallow soil, the province put together a lentil subsidy that exploded the amount of acreage ... just as China pivoted away from lentils to wheat and barley. Saskatchewan was perfectly poised to capture the international market slack, and currently accounts for 29 percent of all the world's lentil farming.