Skip to main content

2022 | Buch

Pulses for Food and Nutritional Security of India

Production, Markets and Trade

insite
SUCHEN

Über dieses Buch

This book provides an in-depth analysis of India’s pulses sector in terms of production, prices, markets, and trade. Pulses play a pivotal role in a developing country like India for all categories of people due to its rich protein content (double that of wheat and three times more than that of rice). Despite being an important crop from the point of view of food, nutrition, and environmental security, the focus of food security policies in developing countries has been more on wheat and rice production.

This book analyses factors influencing the supply of pulses with a greater emphasis on government interventions such as minimum support price (MSP) and National Food Security Mission (NFSM), the effectiveness of MSP and factors influencing farmers’ access to MSP, the import dependency implications through a detailed import pricing behavior of major importers of major pulses. It investigates production, market dynamics, and trade implications related to two major pulses, chickpea and pigeonpea, produced by all pulse-producing States in India. Analysis of farmer's awareness of MSP and factors influencing access to MSP are undertaken through a comprehensive household survey from the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Madhya Pradesh. Finally, the book analyses import implications and import pricing behaviour for all major pulses imported by India.

The book would be very useful for researchers working on the issues of agricultural production and food security, for agriculture and agri-business students, as well as for policy makers to understand the inherent dynamics in the pulses sector.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
1. Introduction
Abstract
Pulses are an essential part of Indian diet as they are a dominant source of protein. Pulses are ‘the poor man’s meat’ because the consumption of dairy and animal products is very low among the poorest segment of both rural and urban India. Pulse crops are used as green manure and contribute in improving soil health. Therefore, pulses contribute in improving human health as well as conserving soil through their nitrogen fixing properties. The vital role played by pulses in the agriculture system and in the diets of people makes it an ideal crop for achieving food and nutritional security, reducing poverty and hunger.
Poornima Varma
2. An Overview of Pulses Economy
Abstract
India contributes around 38% of world’s area under pulses. India’s share in world area was around 56% in 1961 but gradually declined to less than 40% since 2000. In terms of production, India contributed around 23% in 2016, whereas India’s contribution was around 45% in 1961. Though India’s pulses production was always fluctuating, the decline in the share of production was more prominent since 2001. Similarly, Indian pulses yield was also much below the world average.
Poornima Varma
3. Pulses Production and Food Security
Abstract
Substantial progress has been made globally in addressing the extreme forms of hunger as a result of improvements in agricultural productivity and food production. The share of undernourished people declined from nearly one-quarter of the global population in 1970 to around 11% of the global population in 2014–16.
Poornima Varma
4. National Food Security Mission and Pulses Production
Abstract
As part of the eleventh five-year plan, the Government of India launched the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) in 2007–2008 with a major objective of boosting the food production to deal with the concerns of food insecurity. The programme targeted an increase in production of rice, wheat and pulses by 10, 8 and 2 million tonnes respectively by the end of the 11th five-year plan. The scheme was initially launched in 482 districts of 19 states. Out of which 144 districts in 16 states were under the rice scheme and 142 districts in 9 states under the wheat scheme and 468 districts in 16 states under the pulses scheme. The new targets were set in the twelfth five-year plan with an objective of distribution of technologies and better farm management practices guidelines. The scheme continued during the twelfth five-year plan with a new set of targets. The focus of all these schemes was the improvement of yield by bridging the gap between actual yield and potential yield.
Poornima Varma
5. Socio-Economic Profile of the Sample Households
Abstract
The present chapter provides an overview of socio-economic profile of the sample households. Considering the heterogeneous nature of the country and the study region, there were considerable differences across the states in terms of the profile of the households. The sections below undertake a discussion of the socio-economic profile of the total sample size as well as a detailed socio-economic profile at the district level. A detailed socio-economic profile at the district level is undertaken to understand the disparities in terms of various social, economic and institutional factors across different states.
Poornima Varma
6. Pulses Production, Trade and Government Policies
Abstract
The dependence of pulses on rainfed production leads to highly volatile domestic production from one year to the next. Due to this erratic production, domestic pulses production faces the challenge of meeting domestic demand. Also, the production of pulses lagged behind population growth, and as a result, the per capita net availability of pulses declined over the years.
Poornima Varma
7. Pricing and Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Pulses Imports
Abstract
Over the past two decades, the Government of India sought import of pulses as a key trade policy measure to boost domestic availability of pulses. This was inevitable to address the soaring of domestic prices which was hurting the poor consumers. The decline in the consumption of pulses as a result of soaring of prices will have adverse implications for food security as pulses is an important staple crop consumed by all types of households in India. However, the import pulses can also lead to world price transmission to domestic market and the manner in which prices are transmitted depends upon the type of importers—whether they have monopoly in trade or not—and the nature of domestic demand.
Poornima Varma
8. Asymmetric Exchange Rate Pass-Through, Market Share and Import Pricing
Abstract
The current chapter is devoted to examine the role of country-specific market share on exchange rate pass-through and pricing behaviour of major pulses imported to India. The analysis in this chapter shows that the exchange rate pass-through is increasing in market share and after reaching a maximum it declines. The results provide new empirical insights into an inverted U shape relationship between exchange rate pass-through and market share. There have not been many analyses to see the influence of market shares on exchange rate pass-through in the food and agricultural sector. This chapter is making an attempt to analyse the impact of market share on exchange rate pass-through trade by analysing the asymmetric nature of exchange rate pass-through in market share. Our analysis in this chapter also provided empirical evidence for asymmetric exchange rate pass-through in market share. The analysis of long-run exchange rate pass-through is also undertaken in this chapter, and the results provide empirical support for incomplete of partial exchange rate pass-through in the long run as well. The long-run elasticity came out to be significant.
Poornima Varma
9. Minimum Support and Price Policies
Abstract
A defining feature of agricultural economic policy making in India until the nineties has been its inward orientation with high government intervention. In an agricultural economy like India which has highly inequitable socio-economic structure, an intervention by the government is very important. The high rate of growth of population on the one side and the sluggishness of the industrial sector on the other side gave rise to a very high demand for land.
Poornima Varma
10. Information and Utilisation of MSP: Major Determinants
Abstract
The prices of agricultural commodities are inherently more volatile than non-agricultural commodity prices. The major reasons are the inelastic nature of supply to prices. Lack of market integration and information asymmetry also play a role. A very good harvest in one year will result in sharp fall in the prices of that commodity, and farmers will be discouraged from continuing production due to heavy loss. As a result of this, supply will go down in the next year and price will increase. Somewhat similar to this, we experience in the case of pulses. A severe deficit in supply led to soaring of prices in the year 2015–16. However, an increased price and other government interventions again encouraged the production of surplus. Even with an increase in production, the import dependency to meet the excess demand is growing. Additionally, an increase in production is still lagging behind the demand. To counter this, the government announces MSP for various crops including pulses in each year. MSP acts as an instrument in enabling government to guarantee minimum prices to farmers prior to the cropping season so that farmers are encouraged to allocate acreage under pulses cultivation. Thus, the provision of MSP provides an assured market for farmers. However, our analysis of the profile of sample households in Chap. 5 and the discussion in Chap. 9 showed that percentage of farmers who have information about pulses MSP and those who are availing MSP were very less. The farmers who sold crop to procurement agencies even when they had information about MSP and procurement agencies were also less. Therefore, the present chapter will make an analysis of factors influencing the information access to MSP and utilisation of MSP.
Poornima Varma
11. Supply Response of Major Pulses
Abstract
The present chapter analyses the supply response of chickpea and pigeon pea, using dynamic panel data estimation technique. The analysis is undertaken based on a district-level panel data collected from four major pulses producing states of India from 2005 to 2015.
Poornima Varma
12. Conclusion and Policy Implications
Abstract
Pulses are rich in protein content and a major source of protein in Indian diet of all categories of people. The protein content in pulses is double the protein content of wheat and three times more than that of rice. However, the production of pulses was lagging behind the population growth in India, and this resulted in the huge supply shortage to meet the growing domestic demand.
Poornima Varma
Metadaten
Titel
Pulses for Food and Nutritional Security of India
verfasst von
Prof. Poornima Varma
Copyright-Jahr
2022
Verlag
Springer Nature Singapore
Electronic ISBN
978-981-19-3185-7
Print ISBN
978-981-19-3184-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3185-7