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Saturday, August 26, 2017

Pulses Politics*


(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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