Govt focuses on market linkages for farmers to boost pulses yield

Plans to set up 150 farmer-producer organisations in 11 states.

The government is planning to provide market linkages for farmers growing pulses as part of a programme announced in the Budget to improve their production, as scarcity of this essential item was one of the major contributors to food inflation a few years back.

“The share of pulses growers in the consumer price is very low on account of a lack of market linkages as most growers are disaggregated in distribution and the quantum of produce per unit is very low. To work out the economics of scale, it is necessary to organise pulses farmers in groups,” a senior government official said.

He said an assured market would also help in a sustainable improvement in the production of pulses.

To achieve this, the government plans to set up around 150 farmer-producer organisations, with 1,000 farmers in 11 states that contribute around 96 per cent of the country’s total annual production of pulses.

This would essentially be a grouping of farmers to collectively take decisions on the marketing of their produce, training and propagation of the best practices in farming.

The organisations would be given venture capital assistance of Rs 35 crore, which would help them leverage over Rs 300 crore through investment finance.

The proposals form part of the draft guidelines that have been framed to operationalise the programme for the development of 60,000 pulses-growing villages in rainfed areas. The scheme announced in the 2011-2012 Union Budget will be launched on April 1, 2011.

A sum of Rs 300 crore had been allocated by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for the programme. It will be part of the already existing Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY).

The scheme will be implemented in states that have more than 500,000 hectares under pulses every year.

“Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu will be covered under the programme,” the official said. The highest share of the sum allocated in the Budget will be given to Madhya Pradesh, followed by Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

Pulses like pea, moth and rajma (kidney beans), in addition to the pulses included in earlier programmes like the accelerated pulses development programme, would now form part of the new initiative. The states will have a choice to select the villages where they want the programme to be implemented.

“As the programme is for rainfed areas, those areas which don’t have any assured source of irrigation and which have not been part of earlier schemes of a similar nature, will be covered,” the official said. The Union agriculture secretary will regularly monitor the programme.

“We hope to improve pulses production significantly by the end of next year on the back of this scheme and also all other programmes,” the official said.

India’s pulses production for 2010-2011 is estimated to be 16.51 million tonnes, up 12.61 per cent from last year. The problem is that in times of scarcity, the prices of pulses skyrocket and not many countries produce the kind of pulses consumed in India. So, the government plans to improve their production.