Amid rising prices of food items and government's measures to control inflation showing little signs, experts have suggested that domestic supply side with better agriculture infrastructure has to be strengthened in order to address the crisis. In the Grain Asia and International Pulses Forum here today, K C Bhartiya, president, Pulses Importers Association, said that less yield and declining acreage has kept the pulses production in the country at a stagnant level of 13-14 million tonnes. "There is grave mismatch in supply and demand and ways to improve supply is to be identified. Government should encourage pulses production by increasing minimum support price," he said.Demand from bio-fuel sector is equally responsible for high international agri-commodity prices, said experts.According to Vijay Setia, president, All India Rice Exporters' Association, the country is incurring lot of losses in agriculture. "Our paddy production is around 2.4-2.8 tonnes per hectare which is far less when compared with China's above 6 tonnes per hectare," he added. We can improve the production by 15-20 per cent with the same available resources, he further said.Looming land constraints, water scarcity and unsteady yields are big issues, which might make future uncertain, said experts.Atul Chaturvedi, president (agro) Adani Enterprises, said, "Volatile equity markets resulted in the shifting of funds to commodities market which played havoc. Fight for acreage is fierce among commodities." He said that there is area shift from wheat to other lucrative crops, which are more aligned to increase in international prices.Use of hybrid varieties of crop also had consensus among the experts. "GM still has not been looked at seriously," said Chaturvedi.Experts said that the private sector participation shoul be sought in handling and storage of agricultural produce. Mishandling the produce is the reason for substantial waste in the country, they said.
