Dr Ashwani Mahajan
People were yet to recover from high priced onion that prices of pulses started sky rocketing, especially ‘tur’ and ‘urad’ and these pulses are being sold at more than Rs. 200 per kilogram. Prices of pulses are keeping high for the last so many years, and now they have gone beyond the reach of the poor, as prices of pulses have increased by more than 40 percent in the last one year. Even Finance Minister concedes that though inflation has cooled down, except for onion and pulses. With pulses prices going uphill, government has hurriedly ordered for import of pulses and have also created a fund of rupees 500 crore to compensate for transport and processing of pulses, so imported.
Pulses are Essential Nutrient
India has the distinction of being the largest consumer of pulses in the world; however we are not self sufficient in the production of pulses in the country and therefore import large quantities of pulses every year. Pulses are important, not merely as food habit of the people, but are essential nutrient for the masses which by and large, depends on vegetarian food. By providing required protein, pulses make our diet balanced; however, due to sky rocketing prices of pulses, not only our family budget is getting spoiled, even diet balance is also getting disturbed.
Insufficient production
It is notable that whereas incomes of the people and thus the demand for pulses increased manifold, increase in production of pulses was badly insufficient. In 1960-61, total production of pulses in the country was 13 million tons, which increased to 19 million tons (less than 50 percent increase in 53 years). Major reason was, stagnant per hectare productivity, with nearly no expansion in area under pulses cultivation. In 1964-65 per hectare productivity in pulses was 520 kilogram per hectare, which could increase to only 760 kilogram in 2013-14; whereas in case of wheat per hectare productivity increased from 910 kilogram to 3030 kilogram during the same period, that is, 3.6 times increase. This imbalanced growth led to declining per capita availability of pulses from nearly 70 gram in early 1960s to 42 grams now. It is notable that per capita availability of cereals has increased from nearly 400 gram to 440 gram during the same period. Decline in per capita availability of pulses has been posing serious challenge for poor man’s food basket.
How to Bring Pulses Back to Poor Man’s Basket
Most common method to tackle the shortage and inflation in any commodity is to import that commodity. Pulses were no exception to this rule, and we have been importing pulses and edible oils on a large scale from abroad, merely to fill demand – supply gap and cool down inflation. The obvious result was that nation got dependent on the imported pulses and edible oils. Though it is true that nation exports agri-products on a large scale including rice, tea, coffee, tobacco and spices; dependence of the nation on imports has also been rising fast with respect to edible oils and pulses. Whereas in 2005-06 we used to import only $0.56 billion worth of pulses, in 2014-15 nation imported pulses worth $2.8 billion. International price of ‘Tur’ and ‘Moong’ is nearly rupees 80 per Kilogram, now and if we add transportation and handling cost, price of imported pulses would be much higher. Given acute problem of foreign exchange, and ever rising domestic demand, import of pulses on such a large scale cannot be legitimized. It is notable that whereas demand for pulses rise by 4.2 percent annually, against which domestic production is nearly stagnant. Therefore we need to raise domestic production of pulses. Government also concedes that we have a shortage of 3.5 million tons of pulses annually, for which we may have to evolve a strategy to raise production at home.
How to Increase Production
As we understand, according to people’s preferences and food habits, there is a dire need to make pulses available to fulfill protein requirements. And for fulfilling food requirement for 128 crore people in the country we cannot depend on foreign countries. Therefore there is a terrible need to raise production of pulses in the country. History tells us that assured minimum support prices for wheat and rice has helped raising the production of these cereals, in the country. Farmers in India can produce any quantity of agricultural products, provided they are given remunerative prices. Today per hectare productivity of wheat is four times that of pulses, therefore if we give minimum support price of Rs. 1500 per quintal for wheat, legitimately we can provide minimum support price for different pulses, depending upon variance in the per hectare productivity vis-a-vis wheat (ranging from two to five times).
This way we can promote domestic production of pulses. It is notable that international price of ‘Tur’ is rupees 80 per kilogram and government is compelled to purchase the same, in view of shortage. In such a case, promotion of domestic production of pulses will go a long way in improving the condition of farmers, providing natural protein to people and cooling down the prices.
It is unfortunate that in the last 50 years of ‘green revolution’ pulses which are essential source of protein for masses remained neglected. We can provide better seeds, irrigation and other agricultural inputs to help increase production of pulses. At the same time we need to be cautions too, as taking advantage of the situation, some seed companies are trying to promote their GM/Bt varieties. We need to generally promote organic pulses, which have a huge potential for exports too.
(The author is Associate Professor, PGDAV College, University of Delhi)
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