Problem with pulses

Better farm prices and more R&D are only way out

Union Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s plea to hire land abroad to grow pulses to meet India’s supply shortage seems well-intentioned, but a better and more enduring solution would be to boost domestic production. Pulses are a major source of protein for most people, especially the poor. While demand for pulses continues to rise, domestic supply is perennially falling short, with the demand for pulses rising in recent years. This has in great part contributed to food price inflation. The import of pulses is problematic. This is because, widely consumed pulses like pigeon pea (arhar or tur), black gram (urad) and green gram (mung) are not grown in too many places around the world. Moreover, even if Indian entrepreneurs respond to Mr Pawar’s call and choose to go abroad and invest in pulses farming, they are likely to come up against the same hurdles that farmers in India face.

The real problems with pulses are the low productivity of existing strains, a virtual absence of technological progress and the inability of modern science to address the problem of high vulnerability of pulses to pests and diseases. Unlike wheat and rice, where high-yielding germ plasm could be obtained from overseas for breeding India-specific crop varieties, such a possibility is minimal in pulses. Given the low demand for pulses worldwide, especially in the developed world, there has so far been little investment in research and development (R&D) to improving the genetic production potential of pulses. Given that a third of the potential production in pulses is lost due to attacks by pests and germs, the inability to find a technological solution has become the real barrier to increasing pulses production and productivity. This has constrained evolution of high-yielding, fertiliser-responsive and disease- and pest-tolerant varieties of pulses. Moreover, being protein-rich crops, pulses require far more energy to bear grains than cereals like wheat and rice do. Farmers end up not investing enough in the required inputs also because the risk element is high in this heavily rain-dependent crop.

Prior to the current spell of high pulse prices that began in 2008, pulse farming had generally been not as lucrative as farming in competing crops. As a result, the cultivation of pulse crops has got confined largely to the marginal, less fertile, rainfed lands where other relatively more profitable crops cannot be grown. The recent rise in wholesale prices of pulses and the hike in minimum support prices (MSPs) in the last three years may finally encourage farmers to step up pulses production. This year a record 16.5 million tonnes of harvest is expected. It is worth recalling that the previous occasion when the wholesale prices of pulses had similarly skyrocketed was around 1992-93. The farmers even then had responded in the same manner. The pulses production exceeded 14 million tonnes in 1994-95, creating a glut. Clearly, until a technological solution to the problem of low productivity is found, price can be the only policy instrument in the hands of the government that can encourage higher domestic production. Increased investment in R&D is the other. India is the most important home to most pulses and so must do its bit at home.