Pulses is increasingly becoming a huge area of concern — its rising prices are sending household food bills soaring and is a major factor with inflation. While consumption grows, the big break in production eludes farmers, leading to scarcity. And the scope of imports is limited with few countries in the world interested in growing pulses.There is some good news, though. Andhra Pradesh seems to be showing that it is possible to increase production dramatically.From 6-7 lakh quintals (most of which is chickpea) two years ago, Andhra is expected to grow 15 lakh quintals this year — a three to four-fold jump in production. "This shows that if the state government has the will, it can make use of the available research to come out with excellent results,” said Massod Ali, director of the Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR), Kanpur, that works exclusively on pulses.Andhra has been able to improve technology as well as create incentives for the farmers to sow more pulses. This is an aberration in light of the national picture: Area coverage under pulses production in India was 19.09 million hectares during 1950-51 and in 2002-03 the figure was 21.12 million hectares — negligible improvement in 50 years. The same with production — during 1950-51, the production figure was 8.41 million tonnes and during 2002-03, it grew to merely 11.31 million tonnes.The Government was so concerned about the 30 per cent rise in prices of pulses that it decided to ban futures trading in tur and urad. The import duty of pulses was already reduced to zero to encourage imports. The next logical step would be to start focussing on increasing supply of pulses.And before the rest of the country can take the Andhra-like technological leap, there are some factors to be counted in. “We have been able to develop better varieties but after we have done front line demonstrations, it is up to the states to adopt them,” said Ali.Farmers in Andhra have come up with a short-duration hybrid for pigeonpea. This means that farmers can sow the crop in the wheat-rice cycle as well as escape drought. They have developed a moong dal variety which ripens in 55 days.Work is on to develop transgenic varieties of chickpea and pigeonpea, though scientists admit that a technological break is at least six-seven years away. They are also trying to propagate ridge planting that will ensure that plants are not affected by moisture. The question, though, is how many of these experiments will reach the farmers.The other concern is lack of sulphur-based fertiliser. “Pulses need sulphur-based fertilisers and SSP is no longer available,” said Ali. A single round of irrigation does wonders. “Andhra is a classic example. The government brought this technology to the farmers. When they saw that there were rewards, they went ahead and began sowing pulses.”The pulses map also seems to be shifting from north India to central India. The last plan period focuses on diversification from rice-wheat to pulses. With wheat shortage last year, the worry this time is whether the focus will shift back to wheat. Home truths• Pulses are grown over an area of around 23 million hectares accounting for about 18 per cent of total area, and less than 8 per cent of total foodgrain production, and the yield per hectare ranging between 500-600 kg. • These are grown mainly under unirrigated conditions and the irrigated area accounts for less than 10 per cent of the total area. • The major pulses grown in India are pigeonpea (arhar) and Tyson chickpea (gram or desi chana).
