Bhagirath Choudhary(Founder Director at South Asia Biotechnology Centre (SABC)
United Nations has declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (IYP).
Suddenly, we are awakened to fact that we are the largest growers of
major pulses, biggest consumer of it as a component of our vegetarian
diet, but also the bulk importer of this essential commodity. While we
are self-sufficient in the other food crops particularly the cereals,
our nutritional security is largely met through pulses, but we heavily
rely on imports thus outsourcing our nutritional security. Celebrating the International Year is yet another ply of those countries who are the bulk exporter and beneficiary of Indian import growing at double digits in last five years.
Is this, the motive in celebration of the commodity by western
countries who grow this crop exclusively for export to India while they
rarely consume any of the major pulses. What we need is a Swadeshi
Jagran for self-sufficiency and gradually reduce our reliance on the
Pardeshi pulses. That is why the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to
draw attention of the nation and its farmers to the mounting large bill
on account of its import. As a consequence, the Government of India
recently announced a 400-crores Pulses Program spread over the next four years to achieve self-sufficiency in pulses by urging the farmers to grow more and more pulses.
Pulses constitute the major source of protein to the
vegetarian population of India. The major pulses crops are chickpea
called harbara or chana which occupies 10 million ha out of the total of
25 million ha in the world. The second important pulse crop is
pigeonpea called arhar or tur which occupies around 4 million ha mostly
grown and consumed in India. Rest of the pulses like mung bean, urd
bean, lentil, field pea, rajmash, and others are considered minor pulses
and together they are cultivated on around 8-9 million ha. Therefore
total area under pulses is around 24 million ha producing about 17.3
million tonnes of the pulses annually, yielding around 730 kg per ha.
There has been no major breakthrough in the yield since independence
and only marginal increases with a growth rate of 1.8% are seen from the
published figures. The current level is far below the global average
and therefore the per capita availability is just one-fifth lower than
the nutritionists recommend.
Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare
Pulses Import: On Fast Track
Source: ASSOCHEM, 2016
Import of pulses surged by a quarter to 5.8 million tons in 2015-16 costing more than Rs 30,000 crores annually. It is envisioned by ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur
that the country would need around 27.5 million tons by 2025 and around
39 million tonnes of pulses to meet its internal demand by 2050. This
means the country would need a growth rate of minimum of 2.14% at
average yield level of 1200 kg per ha. Countries who are our export
suppliers know that with the available technologies India would still be
short of 14-15 million tonnes of this commodity and they are already
planning their strategies of meeting India’s requirement. Thus the
production which is stagnant for many years will further enhance the
supply-demand gap resulting into more imports, increase prices and
public outcry for this key nutrition food. It is predicted by the mill
association that in the International Year of Pulses 2016, the prices of tur dal may surpass Rs 200 per kg, currently sold at approx. Rs 175 per kg in local markets in major cities.
Besides the production woes, we have to battle policy incentives skewed
towards growing cereals in irrigated areas, low priority of farmers to
spare irrigation to pulses in dryland farming, lack of minimum support
price based procurement and significant losses induced by pests and
diseases. The current MSP of pulses at Rs 35 per kg
will do a little to drive farmers to increase areas under pulses.
Ironically, the traditional breeding efforts have only marginally helped
improve the productivity due to development of resistant cultivars for
some key pathological diseases such as wilt, sterility mosaic and
blights but failed to manage the key insect pests called pod borers in
chickpea and pigeonpea crops. The insect-pest belongs to the same family
of insects that induces the bollworms in cotton. Recent developments in breeding techniques coupled with GM trait have been successful in transferring the Bt
gene into chickpea by the Indian scientists of Assam Agricultural
University (AAU) in collaboration with Sungro Seeds, a domestic seed
company, in a public-private partnership program. The AAU-Sungro Bt chickpea
seeds have been successfully tested in the green houses and also
undergone limited field trials in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The
results have been encouraging and it is expected that the yield will be
increased by 25% and thus a significant increase in the pulses
production. The scientific community is also excited of the new GM
technology of Bt chickpea and Bt pigeonpea developed by ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur.
If corrective policy and regulatory decisions are not taken, the
scientists are wary that Bt chickpea will meet the same fate as the GM
mustard knowing fully well that the country is loosing precious foreign
exchange to import this commodity. The Government of Maharashtra gave permission to field trials of Bt chickpea has all of a sudden withdrawn the permission
to conduct the field experimentation under pressure from different
groups. Ironically, the set of activists and their reasons of opposing
GM crops have also changed with the change of regime at the centre. So
while the UPA regime succumbed to the pressure of environmentalists who
oppose on the plank of environment safety, Swadeshi lovers and
proponents find favour with the present NDA regime. It is travesty that a
democratic polity only has ears for activists and their roundly
demolished and flawed unscientific arguments, but do not have a heart
for the pleadings of the regular scientists involved in the pursuit and
progress of science across the public institutions of the country.
Source: CGIAR, 2007
The problem of self-sufficiency in pulses can be
solved by improving genetic make-up of pulses to fight target pest
Gram-pod borer Heliothis armigera (Hubner), a notorious pest of chickpea that reportedly causes 50-60% damage to chickpea pods in India.
The uncertainty over the use of insect resistant (IR) technology needs
to be removed so as to avoid the demoralization of public and private
sector engaged in the development of IR Bt chickpea and pigeonpea.
Fortunately, India have had an excellent example of successful
management of a similar pest, Helicoverpa armigera
in cotton through Bt technology. Since the introduction of Bt cotton in
2002, both the area and productivity of cotton have grown significantly
making India the largest producer of cotton in the world and altering
the export-import scenario as a net exporting country. Can we not
replicate the success of Bt cotton in pulses for effective management of
pod borer pest?
The insect resistant Bt chickpea technology if
commercialized can increase the yield of chickpea by nearly 300 kg per
ha, a target set to achieve pulses yield of 1000 kg per ha by 2025. What
are the implications? Bt chickpea can save the minimum of 3-5
insecticide sprays, which can reduce the cost by Rs. 1,200-1500 per ha
and can significantly contribute in increasing yield atleast by 300 kg
per hectare generating additional income of around Rs. 10,000-15,000 per
hectare or more. The large scale adoption of Bt chickpea will
substantially reduce the import bill by nearly Rs.15,000 crores and
ensure availability of pulses at affordable price to masses.
Integrating Bt chickpea with the Pulses Program is
critical to accelerate pulses production in the near future. Merely
doling out precious resources to national and international institutions
for creating seed hubs and distribution of minikits will not bridge the
increasing supply-demand gap. We believe there are sufficient reasons
to allow Bt chickpea and Bt pigeonpea in the country, a technology
developed under PPP where farmers can retain their own seeds for sowing
in the subsequent seasons. Celebrating the 2016 as International Pulses
Year is an excellent proposition for SWADESHI JAGRAN MANCH
to stall the game plan of exporting countries by promoting SWADESHI
TECHNOLOGIES such as insect resistant Bt chickpea and Bt pigeonpea.
* CD Mayee and Bhagirath Choudhary represent the
South Asia Biotechnology Centre (SABC), a New Delhi based not-for-profit
scientific society. Email: bhagirath@sabc.asia or charumayee@yahoo.co.in
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