By Sreekumar Raghavan
Several reports have appeared about rising pulses prices and how the country would be worse off if nothing is done to raise pulses output. Pulses prices have risen 21.2% for the week ended October 31 as food inflation soared to 13.7%.

As pulses prices hit the roof in 2009, the government can’t be blamed for not taking any action. Many states swiftly moved against hoarders, pulses export was banned while zero duty imports are being allowed till March 31, 2010. But has it solved the problem in a country which is globally the largest producer and consumer of pulses?

The cobweb theorem that is generally used to analyse agri-commodity prices states that prices move in cyclical pattern or continued wave-like pattern and the name comes from the appearance of the diagrams capturing prices. If prices of a commodity rise this year, more farmers will be attracted to it and by the time it is ready for harvest prices come down as several people have entered the fray.

But for some reasons, higher prices are not forcing farmers to plant more pulses. Here is a Reuters report which highlights the issue: “Acreage (Chana) may fall in Rajasthan due to patchy rains and a diversion towards rapeseed, while recent rains have improved soil moisture in Madhya Pradesh, but that may prompt farmers to switch to wheat, said Ashwini Bansod, a senior analyst at MF Global Commodities India Ltd”.Wheat requires more water compared to rainfed chana.”

As per the fourth advance estimates, the domestic production of pulses has declined to 14.66 million tonnes during 2008-09, compared to 14.76 million tonnes during 2007-08, leading to a supply-demand mismatch.

Imports to blame
With production lagging behind demand, the easy way out has been to resort to imports to bridge the gap. And leftists in Kerala and elsewhere who are up in arms against the ASEAN Free Trade pact perhaps don’t know the fact that the tur contained in their favourite vada or idli might be coming from military junta ruled Rangoon or from USA, Canada or Mozambique.

With tur, urad and moong prices surging, India is now importing more quantities of cheaper yellow peas from Canada where it is used mainly for animal feed and hence the lower prices. An article in Economic Times Blog pointed out that yellow peas would have the same status in the Indian kitchens just as imported Palm Oil acquired rising importance beating all other edible oils. While importing commodities may help to temporarily tide over a demand-supply gap, it cannot be seen as a long-term solution.

When we probe further, it can be understood that the green revolution bypassed the pulses. It had more to do with increasing productivity of rice and wheat which is visible from the data from 1951-2008. In 1950-51, the total acreage for wheat was 9.75 mn hectares, production 6.46 mn tonnes and productivity 663 kg per hectare, however these figures improved over the years due to adoption of high yielding varieties. Productivity climbed to 851 kg per ha in 1960-61 reaching 2281 kg per ha in 1990-91 and by 2007-08 soared to 2785 kg per ha with a production of 78.40 mn tonnes and acreage at 28.15 mn ha.

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