India plans to become self-sufficient in grain pulses in the next 3 or 4 years

The Indian government is focusing on reducing imports of pulses and edible oil and stabilizing food prices as part of its “100-day program”.

India’s agriculture ministry is working on a new scheme to achieve self-sufficiency in pulses by 2027 in a bid to cut the huge import bill of pulses and edible oil to boost domestic supply, Mint journalist Pooja Das quoted a senior official as saying.

India’s import expenditure in FY 2023-24 was $854.8 billion compared to $898 billion in FY23. Agricultural exports alone reached $48.9 billion in FY24, down 8% from $53.2 billion in FY23.

While imports of agricultural products fell due to lower imports of edible oils, imports of pulses hit a six-year high. According to India’s Commerce Ministry, the country spent $3.75 billion on imports of pulses and $14.8 billion on edible oils compared to $1.94 billion and $20.84 billion last year, respectively.

“Our 100-day program will certainly focus on oilseeds, pulses and biofuels with a major emphasis on reducing import costs. Another very important thing is to stabilize prices of agricultural products,” a senior official said.

“We are trying to reach self-sufficiency in pulses in the next 3-4 years with the introduction of types of state support, as in the case of oilseeds. A new development program is being prepared to promote pulses production on a large scale and it is expected to be released in the next few days. We are working on SoP (standard operating procedures) and depending on budgetary allocations we will take the program forward,” the official added.

India is a net importer of edible oils with 57% of the total procured from various countries, especially Indonesia and Malaysia. The government launched the National Mission on Edible Oils and Palm Oil (NMEO-OP) in 2021 to increase oil palm cultivation and increase crude palm oil production to 1.1 million tons by 2025-2026.

Similarly, the government is taking steps to make the country self-sufficient in pulses production and is implementing the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) on pulses. In comparison, Indian farmers produced 19 million tons of pulses in 2013-2014, and the figure has increased to 26 million tons in 2022-2023. “But we should not stop there and should create a system whereby by 2027 we can not only stop importing grain pulses but also export them,” a government official said.

India relies on imports to meet its domestic demand (about 28 million tons) for three types of pulses – tur (pigeon pea), urad (black mungbean) and masur (lentil), mainly through purchases from Australia, Canada, Russia, Myanmar and Mozambique, as well as several other countries.

Tags: pea, lentil