Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/recipe-for-failure-4677556.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Recipe for failure | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Recipe for failure
-The Hindu Business Line

Our pulses trade and output policies are made with the wrong ingredients

The present spike in prices of pulses is a fallout of both structural and short-term factors. Years of flawed production and trade policies, along with the absence of technological breakthroughs to improve yields, have led to stagnation in output. The retail prices of pulses have galloped along at a faster rate ever since the fourth advance estimates of foodgrain output were out in August, from 23 per cent year-on-year in July to 30 per cent in September. Tur dal prices have led the rise, ruling at over 200 a kg. This spike comes on top of endemic ‘protein inflation’, thanks to a widening supply-demand gap. A gap of at least 5 million tonnes this year, to be met by imports (an estimated demand of 22-23 million tonnes against a projected domestic output of just over 17 million tonnes), is likely to increase thanks to rising population and incomes. The latter will lead to a relative shift in consumer preferences away from cereals, as is already in evidence. India’s demand and imports account for about a third of world output and trade; the import share may rise if India’s production and world output remain flat. If India’s output is stuck at 17-18 million tonnes, that of the world has remained in the 60-70 million tonnes range for over a decade. There is an urgent need to take an integrated view of our pulses production and trade.

India should act responsibly when it enters the pulses market. It could have done better than to announce that it intends to create a ‘buffer stock’ in pulses. This can heat up markets. The Centre should not just streamline tendering through its agencies, but also retreat from the process and refrain from imposing arbitrary stocking limits on private trade. A messy trading system does not send the right price signals to growers. A tur grower braves poor yield (say, 0.5-0.6 tonnes per hectare, about a third of the yield of pulses in China and Canada), a six-month waiting period and vagaries of the weather only to find, thanks to a sudden market intervention, that the price is way below what he expected. Export curbs deny him the benefit of a favourable international price. Surely, there are better ways to reconcile producer and consumer interest.

Pulses will remain the unpreferred option for growers until there is a breakthrough in the form of short-duration and high-yielding varieties. Research must be directed to this end. Current prices — international or domestic support — do not always compensate for the shortfall in yield compared to wheat and rice. A procurement-irrigation system that favours wheat, rice and sugarcane has done a disservice to pulses, which have been relegated to the dryland regions. A liberalised trade environment along with distribution and processing reforms that maximise gains to the producer and the consumer can make a difference. Growers, a scattered community like milk producers, can be organised into cooperatives. There are more worthy areas of policy intervention than merely focusing on trade.