Why is the production of pulses stagnant while that of other food crops is growing, even if at a slow pace? The reasons are several, though the blame is most often put on lack of new technology to enhance productivity of pulse crops. The truth is that the cultivation of pulses has gradually been pushed to non-irrigated, marginal lands that are not ideally suited for growing other relatively more lucrative crops.
Besides, unlike wheat and rice, where production, price and marketing are assured, pulses enjoy none of these prerequisites for boosting output. Pulses are highly risk-prone crops, vulnerable to pest attack and sensitive to weather. A High as well as a low rainfall affects them adversely. Farmers are seldom sure of getting good returns even when the consumer prices of pulses rule sky-high. There is, therefore, hardly any incentive for them to invest in yield-enhancing inputs like good seeds, irrigation, fertilisers and pesticides.
According to H S Gupta, director of the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), or Pusa Institute, pulses, being protein-rich crops, are fundamentally different from other food crops. They need nutrition and energy for synthesising both carbohydrates and proteins, while most other crops need energy largely for producing only carbohydrates.
Though pulses have not received the same kind of attention as has been paid to the development of new technology for wheat, rice and some other crops, such attention has not been totally lacking either. New technology for pulses has to be developed wholly indigenously because, unlike other food crops, pulses are of little interest to other countries. For Indians, these are the most important sources of protein.
“We have the technology, new varieties as well as strategies that can help bridge the annual gap of around 3 million tonnes in the indigenous production and demand of pulses. But these need to be adopted and implemented to show results,” Gupta asserts.
Crops like chickpea (chana) and mung bean can play a significant role in offsetting the pulses deficit. New varieties of these crops can help expand the acreage under pulses as they can fit into the cropping cycles even in areas where pulses are generally not grown. Chickpea protein is deemed relatively superior. For, besides being a complete protein, it has more total digestible nitrogen. Chana also has beta-carotene (Vitamin A).
The new varieties of desi as well as kabuly chana developed by IARI have extra-large seeds which fetch relatively higher prices and can, thus, improve the profitability of chickpea cultivation. These chanas are ideally suited for parching to make roasted chanas as also preparing other Indian chana-based culinary delights. This apart, these chanas are in demand because of their higher recovery of besan (refined gram flour), which is an essential ingredient in most Indian kitchens. Varieties like BGD 72, DG 2024 and DG 2028 belong to this category of bold-seeded chickpeas.
Most new varieties of chickpea can withstand high temperature and drought besides being resistant to dreaded plant disease called wilt. These can be grown in Bundelkhand and the rice lands left unplanted for want of adequate water (commonly called rice fallows) in states like Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar.
In the case of mung bean, on the other hand, IARI has managed to reduce the growing period of the crop to just around 60 days, from more than 70 days earlier, to enable it to fit into the cropping cycles in the country’s key irrigated farm belt in the north-western states of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. The short-duration mung varieties, such as Pusa Vishal and Pusa 9531, can be grown in these states either after harvesting mustard or potato around March 15 to 25 or after harvesting wheat in April. In both cases, this 60-day crop of summer mung will vacate the fields well in time for planting paddy, the main kharif crop, in June and July.
Cultivation of mung, a leguminous crop that imbibes nitrogen from atmosphere and fixes it in the soil, will help improve the soil fertility, which is currently under stress because of growing of exhaustive crops like what and rice year after year in this region. “If even half of the land under wheat-rice rotation is used to grow summer mung, much of the country’s deficit of pulses can be made up,” says Gupta. His sane advice needs to be acted upon.
