Dear Editor,
India’s ubiquitous position as leading producer,the foremost consumer and the largest importer of pulses is further besmirched by abysmally mediocre policy intervention and equally unimpressive agricultural research budgets.Pulses in India recorded less than 40 per centgrowth in production in the past 40 years while its per capita availability declined from 60 gram a day in the 1950’s to 35 grams a day in 2000’s.
Currently,even as production has stabilized at 18.5 million tonnes,our consumption is hovering at 22 million tonnes,which necessitates yearly pulse imports of around 3.5 million tonnes.The prevalent rice-wheat crop rotation in the nothern states,particularly in Punjab and Haryana as depleted water resources at an alarming rate.Apart from an unsustainable and inefficient agricultural cycle,India is losing precious forex[nearly$2.3billion]while importing pulses from players such as Canada and Australia.
Price fluctuation is common in the largely unorganized pulses market of the country,and often exacerbated by the lack of assured procurement.Estimates suggests that India needs an annual growth of 4.2 percent to ensure projected demand of 30 million tonnes by 2030.To meet this benchmark,constraints to production must be analayzed and effective steps must be taken .Major problems related to productivity of pulses and cereals are:
1.Technological setbacks.
2.Lack of managerial set-up to supervise the landscape.
3.Lack of supporting mechanism for the procurement and marcketing of pulses.
4.Low genetic yield of indian pulses and their vulnerability to pests and diseases.
5.Bring rain-fed,pulses often experience drought at critical growth stages.
6.Lack of awareness of production techonologies.
7Public investment in agricultural research to develop High yielding,short duration strains of pulses,oil seeds and other horticultural crops has been exceptionally low.
Some suggestions are:
1.Identifying land for growing pulses must go hand in hand with promoting yield-argumenting and resource saving techonologies.
2.Providing farmers better access to remunerative markets.
3.Diverstification of the rice-wheat system in the Indo-Gangetic plain through popularization of short duration varities of pulses.
3.Use of Drip irrigation.
4.Farmers awareness.
5.Targeting large farmers of the state will bring higher returns.
6.PPP in seed production,inputs,promotion and extenction must be mapped out.
7.Dal mills and processing facilities should be encouraged within the vicinity of production areas,which will promote off-farm employment.
8.Offering capital subsidy,stamy duty exemption or viability gap funding,will be another effective step.
Anupum Shrikandia
Via-e-mail
