Bumper pulses harvest difficult to sustain: Experts

Large tracts of land could shift from pulses back to cotton in the forthcoming kharif season

India’s record pulses production in 2016-17, estimated to be more than 22 million tonnes, has come largely on the back of a sharp increase in acreage, and analysts have started questioning its sustainability, citing low per-hectare yield.

Many say that in the forthcoming kharif season, large tracts of land could shift from pulses back to cotton, as the pre-booking of seeds suggests.

Though the final acreage numbers for the just-concluded rabi sowing season are still to come, preliminary figures suggest that India produced record 22.14 million tonnes of pulses from 29-30 million hectares of land.

The increase in area happened as thousands of hectares of land got shifted from cotton, maize and sugar cane during the kharif season, while unused fallow land was brought under pulses in rabi.

The per-hectare pulses yield in 2016-17 is estimated to be around 724 kg, which is far less than global yields, which for most pulses variety are in excess of 1,100 kg. 

“A comparison between per-hectare yield of Indian pulses vis-à-vis other countries should not be done. We grow pulses thrice in a year, while countries like Canada plant only one pulses crop, which gets around seven to eight months to mature. Our crops are harvested in four months,” Narendra Pratap Singh, Director of Kanpur-based Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR), told Business Standard.

Singh said, in some areas of India, like the Malwa plateau, pulses yield was comparable to the best in the world. 

Total acreage of pulses in 2016-17, in both kharif and rabi seasons, is expected to be over 30 million hectares, which is around 24 per cent more than the previous year’s and 30 per cent more than it was in 2014-15. 

Both 2014 and 2015 were drought years. Nonetheless, even compared to a normal monsoon year, pulses acreage in 2016-17 was the highest. 

Data showed that in 2012-13 and 2013-14, India’s average per-hectare yield of all pulses was better than the 2016-17 yield. In 2012-13, the per hectare yield of pulses was around 789 kg, while in 2013-14, it was 764 kg.

The bumper harvest has pushed prices of most pulses below the minimum support price (MSP), prompting the government to start aggressive buying from farmers. It has managed to build a buffer stock of over 1 million tonne, through local purchases and imports. Local purchases till first week of February was over 600,000 tonnes, which would have gone up by now considering that procurement was on.

 

But, considering an estimated production of 22 million tonnes in 2016-17, the procurement of 600,000 tonnes is just marginal, a reason why prices in the retail market is taking time to move up. This further raises a big question mark over the sustainability of the record output seen in 2016-17. 

“The additional three million hectares that was added to pulses this year has largely come from rainfed areas because of a shift from maize and sugar cane. The fear is if farmers won’t get good price for their produce, they would go back to cultivating alternative crops,” Singh said.

Mahendra Dev, Director of Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), told Business Standard that such high levels of production could be difficult to sustain as over 90 per cent of the pulses is grown in rainfed areas. 

Pravin Dongre, Chairman of Indian Pulses and Grains Association (IPGA), said that to ensure good price to farmers for pulses, the Centre should immediately lift the stock holding limits on pulses so that natural price discovery could be done. At the same time, he said, some export of processed or value-added pulses should be allowed. 

“For every farmer, agriculture is an economic activity. Unless farmers get good prices and it is above the MSP, they won’t permanently switch to that commodity,” Dongre said.