Like wheat and rice, India needs to be a power player in pulses and oilseeds

Feeding 17.5% of the world population with 2.4% of the total world surface area is not an easy task for the Indian government. The High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds, irrigation facilities, pesticides, fertilizers, and mechanization of farming activities have almost solved the problem of hunger. Increase in productivity has not only helped India to maintain its food security program but has reduced its dependency on the world. The combined effect of Minimum Support of Price (MSP) & climatic conditions has helped India to maintain its self-sufficiency in wheat and rice. Now, the time has come to look out for pulses & oilseeds productions, which are driving the food inflation market.

According to the Economic Survey report 2021-22, ‘Oils and fats’ contributed around 60 percent of ‘food and beverages’ inflation despite having a weight of only 7.8 percent in the group. The overall rise in food inflation due to the skyrocketing price of vegetable oil has disturbed the normal family budget of India and the rural population has been highly hit by it. Now the time has come for the government to intensely focus on increasing the production of pulses and oil seeds. And, when globalization is in the reverse direction, self-sufficiency in every domain of production is the key to sustaining in this more nationalized and internalized world.

Oilseeds

During 2020-21, India imported 60% of which is 133 lakh tonnes of edible oil for its consumption and 56% of which is palm oil followed by soybean and sunflower. The importing cost of the production has substantiated to about a 32% rise in edible oil inflation per year. In the financial year 2020-21, edible oil imports touched about Rs 80,000 crore or USD 11 billion.

The diverse agro-climatic conditions of India provide a greater opportunity for the government to push for the production of oil seeds. Currently, oilseeds cultivation in India is about 27 million hectares and most of the land is marginal land. The country grows seven edible oilseeds like groundnut, rapeseed & mustard, soybean, sunflower, sesame, sunflower, and niger, and two non-edible oilseeds like castor and linseed. But, as palm oil accounts for about 50% of the total import, the intensive palm oil production holds the key to become self-sufficient in oil production. Experts suggest the crop has the highest vegetable oil yielding perennial crop, its production will sort out the oil deficiency in the country.

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The National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil palm (NMOOP) has set Rs 11040 crore for the scheme related to the production of palm oil. But the realization of the intended goal is the real test of the scheme. The government should incentivize the farmers with reasonable minimum support prices and provide the palm oil crop, irrigation management, fertilizers, and other inputs to raise the productivity level.

Moreover, the government needs to tap the potential of eastern India. Which are still moving in the doldrum of production of wheat and paddy. Further, the government procurement strategy, climatic conditions, and inertia of production ease have almost stagnated the growth of eastern India. It is the right time for the government to tap the potential of eastern Indian states like Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Assam and the climatic conditions of these states also coincide with the biome of palm oil production.

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Pulses

India accounts for about 25% of the production and 27% of the consumption of pulses in the world. Further, research states that by 2025, India will require about 33.59 million tonnes of pulses for its consumption and the current production rate suggests the country will fall short of about 10 million tonnes as the expected production value by 2025 will be about 23.21 million tonnes.

To align with the expected demand & supply, India needs to be prepared for the future course of action. Although, the exponential rise in the minimum support price from 2014-15 to 2021-22 has helped in increasing the production of Tur (Arhar), moong, urad, gram, and lentil (Masur).

Currently, the country has almost become self-sufficient in pulse production with government support. Also, the self-sufficiency in pulse production was a major political angle involved in the opposition to the three farms’ laws. As Canadian pulses export to India decreases by more than 80% during the 2017-18 crop year, the further reform in farm production would have brought these developed countries’ agri-export to its knees. That’s why Canada was more prominent in derailing the agri-reform in India.

But, global political propaganda interventions should not be allowed to dictate our internal policies and the government needs to continue with the agri-reform agenda with different persuasive efforts. Moreover, the Covid & Ukraine war has brought opportunity in the time difficulties to bring overhaul change in the oilseeds & pulses production to make the country self-sufficient as we are in wheat & rice productions. For a country like India to become a major global power needs to be self-sufficient in every line of products and requirements.