Posted on February, 14, 2022 at 08:43 am
Pulses form a critical part of the Indian diet. A cheap and affordable form of protein, Indian households have been including pulses to their plate for several years. However, India, which is home to the world's second-largest population, has been facing a shortage of pulses for many years. This has forced the nation to look at imports coming in from many smaller countries not just in Asia but even in Africa and from even the Americas. India imports pulses from Myanmar, Malawi, Senegal and Canada to name a few countries. Ironically enough, while the country's efforts to be self-sufficient in dairy products have yielded results, the yellow revolution, aimed at self-sufficiency in pulses hasn't taken off quite as planned.
One of the biggest issues relates to the variation in the production estimates. So what ails the Indian pulses scenario? Some interesting points were discussed at the webinar organised by the Indian Pulses & Grains Association (IPGA) on the occasion of World Pulses Day. Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog said that there had to be an emphasis on both production and productivity issues relating to pulses. "Meat may not be easily accessible to many and pulses can have an important role to play when it comes to meeting the needs of the population," Kant said.
Dr SK Malhotra, the Union agriculture commissioner, said that the government was now looking at a nationwide rollout of Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space Agrometeorological & Land-based observation (FASAL). "The pilot project has been successful and we will take it national soon. This would help us to get a better and more accurate assessment about the crop output," Dr Malhotra opined. Currently, the Union government depends on the data provided by the states.
Unfortunately, the state governments provide a rather crude tool to assess crop production and this tool is nothing but the area under a particular crop. The average productivity for each crop is then multiplied by the acreage under a crop to determine the crop output in a particular state. In fact, one of the more widespread tools available for crop assessment remains the United States Dept of Agriculture (USDA) data, which is something that finds favour with not only agriculture traders but even other users of agriculture-related data.
If lack of reliable production data is one issue, trade is clearly praying and hoping that India increases import of pulses. Vatsal Lilani, president of OATA of Myanmar said that thanks to the appetite from India, every rise in pulses output both in Myanmar and in Africa was being fully absorbed. "Myanmar's proximity to India makes it the ideal supplier. Myanmar has a history of cultural closeness with India," he added. Myanmar is the leading supplier of black matpe (urad) to India. Mr Lilani's optimism is driven by the fact that India has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Myanmar and Malawi to import 2.5 lakh tonnes of urad and 2.5 lakh tonnes of tur respectively. The MoU is for a period of five years. At the same time with India's domestic pulses output showing a rising trend (it has risen from 16.8 million tonnes in 2015-16 to touch 25 million tonnes in 2020-21) there is a belief that imports could eventually drop. The government hopes that India's domestic output hits 30 million tonnes over the next few years. Thanks to the spurt in domestic production, the country's dependence on imports has come down drastically falling by four million tonnes over the last five years. With a rise in domestic output, there have been voices like Bimal Kothari, vice-chairman of IPGA who sought the creation of a dall modernization fund that would help several dal mills across the country to modernize. In fact, Yogesh Thorat, MD of the MahaFPC also stressed on the need for some preliminary processing to take place at the farm level itself. He also said that there was a need to increase mechanization and stressed the need to improve warehousing and processing.
Source: News9Live