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: 150
 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: 151
 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]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The pulse of Indian agriculture -Devesh Chaturvedi

The pulse of Indian agriculture -Devesh Chaturvedi

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jan 18, 2019   modified Modified on Jan 18, 2019
-The Pioneer

Government policies for the pulses sector have helped overcome multiple challenges. Effective implementation of an integrated module can solve most farm problems

Agricultural transformation is high on everybody’s agenda today. Various stakeholders, including experts, policy-makers and political executives, have expressed their views on how to move forward with agricultural policies so that our farmers can prosper. However, performance of policies and strategies that are already in their implementation stage will provide valuable guidance for the future. It is in this connection that it is imperative to analyse the results of India’s achievements in the pulses sector in the last two to three years that has surprisingly gone unnoticed. The annual production of pulses in India was stagnating at around 15-18 million tonne for several years while its domestic demand increased steadily. In 2015-16, against an estimated domestic demand of 23 million tonne, production stood at 16.35 million tonne. To meet the demand gap, India had to import pulses every year. It can, therefore, be concluded that the earlier policies were not successful in this important sub-sector of agriculture.

Domestic consumption in India forms a substantial share of the global demand. Hence, even a slight variation in the world’s pulses production leads to significant increase in its prices in the domestic market. A similar trend was witnessed in 2015 when there was a sudden spurt in the market prices of pulses, which caused hardships to the consumers and became a matter of serious concern for policy-makers. As an immediate relief, this challenge was met by increasing the import of pulses. But to ensure that such a situation does not arise again, it became necessary to implement a coordinated strategy. Based on the Prime Minister’s directives, the formulation and implementation of this comprehensive strategy was initiated at the level of the Cabinet Secretary. The key aspects of this strategy were to increase production/productivity, provide remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce, strengthen market mechanism and make pulses affordable for the economically and socially backward households.

As a first step, action was initiated in collaboration with the States under the National Food Security Mission to increase the production of pulses. Adoption of quality seeds and model agricultural practices through extension programmes were given priority. The overall objective was to reduce the gap between domestic demand and production as quickly as possible. Due to sustained and coordinated efforts, the area under pulse cultivation, which was 23.10 lakh hectares in the financial year 2014-15, was increased to 24.91 lakh hectares in the financial year 2015-16, 29.44 lakh hectares in the financial year 2016-17 and 29.99 lakh hectares in the financial year 2017-18. Due to the adoption of best practices, the productivity of pulses, which was 656 kg per hectare in 2015-16, increased to 786 kg in 2016-17 and to 841 kg per hectare in 2017-18. As a result, the annual production of pulses, which was stagnating and stood at 16.35 million tonne in 2015-16, jumped to 23.13 million tonne in 2016-17 and 25.23 million tonne in 2017-18.

Please click here to read more.

The Pioneer, 17 January, 2019, https://www.dailypioneer.com/2019/columnists/the-pulse-of-indian-agriculture.html


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close